Hey everyone! Before we begin talking about the upcoming Dallas Open event, we want to take the time to thank our very special guests this week, Apollo Chang & Carmine Battista for joining us!
Everyone featured in the article will be attending the Dallas Open event taking place this weekend and we grilled them on some questions about what they’ll be taking, how the Balance Dataslate warped their view of the tournament, and how their new lists are looking to perform!
Let’s dive straight in:
What's your name, what faction are you taking to the Dallas Open & why?
Apollo: Apollo Chang - Tau: I changed factions too many times last year. I told myself I’m going to pick a faction this season and stick with it for consistency purposes and hopefully have a chance for Best In Faction.
Brian: Brian here, and I’m taking my Deathwatch Kill Team Strike Force list aptly named the “Gravy Train” to the Dallas Open!
Chad: Hey everyone it's Chad here from the Tabled Talk Podcast! I'll be taking Dark Saedath Harlequins to the Dallas Open this weekend. Funny enough the extra AP and fight on death helps this super mobile & elite army trade efficiently more often.
Carmine: Carmine & I’ll be taking Custodes. My other armies while large 5k+ being Guard, ultramarines, blood angels, & Eldar are not tooled into a competitive meta. I have had some success with ultramarines In four RTTs end of last year when I started competing, but I ran a lot of victrix and bladeguard along with eradicators but the shielded Astartes don’t benefit from Armour Of Contempt and ultramarines terminators are a bit anemic restive to say deathwing. Custodes (while heavily defensively penalized post nerf) are still a solid army and I’ve got a 83% competitive win rate with them across my 4 most recent RTTs so have some return on experience. My frustration is by limiting switching shield host and ka’tah stratagems to once a game what finesse levers that were there in piloting them has been boiled down indelicately by Games Workshop. I was offered a friend's harlequins army to pilot, but first, my only experience with harlequins is losing to them, and secondly, I take pride in playing with my own models. In short, custodes was the best option available to me out of the stuff I owned, changing plans at the last minute is often knee jerk best to just soldier on with the old guard.
Brandon: Brandon. I’m taking Blood Angels, because my golden boys don’t feel viable with losing objective secured on everything non troop. But on top of that, armour of contempt feels incredibly powerful.
Connor: Connor here. I'm looking to bring my Grey Knights to Dallas.
David: My name is David Soko. I’m going to be taking my Space Wolves. This is my first and only ready army I have and I feel I have my play style with this army. With my list I can go against any opponent and hold my own. Playing my game I should win or make it close. I have a lot of speed and now a much more tanky ability in Armour of Contempt.
Kevin: Kevin "War Dog" McC.
Chaos Knights! They'll be making a return to the Dallas Open with a bit of a vengeance. One of my goals for this year in ITC was to perform better in any event that I'm venturing back to. Doing so with the same army I went with last time would definitely make that achievement all the sweeter.
How has the Balance Dataslate changed or informed your list design for the event?
Apollo: It affected my list by quite a bit. Even though I didn’t play heavy into indirect fire, I still played heavily into mont’ka and broadsides.
Brian: With Armor of Contempt in play, I’ve decided to alter a few things and bring more Gravis units back into the list. Which in turn made it viable to bring the Chief Apothecary to revive and heal all those three wound models.
Chad: It saved me from having to build and paint Voidweavers, that's for sure. The points cost for Voids is a little unpaletable but by cutting the Death Jester & not taking a pivotal role on the Shadowseer, I've arrived at a list I enjoy!
Armour of Contempt was a big driving force that pushed me into Dark. There's so many cool ways that Harlequin Troupes and Characters can "swing for the fences" and the extra AP is exactly what the meta called for.
Carmine: Materially. Removed a squad of bikes no longer befitting from AGA (transhuman) removed wardens (the emperor's literal bodyguards now suck In that capacity) and aren’t even obsec (senseless GW). In their place I added 6 sagittarum and a vexilla that negates cover and offers a -1 to hit bubble.
My list deals well with Armour of contempt, I welcome the rule. I think it’s good marines power armour is no longer made out of cardboard, an elegant solution to ap creep. T’au didn’t get hit nearly as hard as custodes and are still a major threat. Harlequins remain an anathema to Custodes as a true hard counter. The recent dismissal of leviathan and crusher mean that whilst tyranids will be dominant at least there’s some fighting chance against the hive mind.
Brandon: Yeah, it made me play a completely different army since I feel like Custodes can’t play the objective game as easily. I’m willing to be proved wrong. but I think with the nerf to the emperor's auspice and genetic alchemy, I don’t think the current builds of custodes, with multiple units of bikes, is viable. On the other hand with armor of contempt, I like the idea of a sanguinary guard unit (who already have a 2+ base save) having a 1+ in cover and ignoring an AP. I think this will make marines one of the tougher armies to kill.
Connor: Oh man, it changed everything. I was originally going to bring Custodes, but with their kneecaps being knocked in with the dataslate I decided to go with an army I already had painted. None of my armies are going to be able to compete well into the current hotness of Harlequins and Tyranids, so I'm bringing a pretty relaxed list this time. A big block of Terminators, an Apothecary, even a box dread. I still hope to do well, but I'm just going to take it slow and have fun with it!
David: The dataslate has helped by giving me more protection and allowing my units to get stronger in attacks. I dropped quite a few of my storm shields which has now allowed the units that dropped them to get more attacks in with twin lightning claws. Another way it changed my list design is I opted to drop my bladeguard and switched them out with terminators. I feel the terminators with the natural 2+ armor save will stay alive longer than the bladeguard with the armor of contempt.
Kevin: This recent Balance Dataslate caused a bit of whiplash for Knights in general. Though Games Workshop has updated it again to incorporate Towering Foe, the initial "loss" of it was causing me to scramble a bit as to what I would end up doing. However, as Towering Foe is officially still on the menu, my list design has not changed from what it was prior to the new Dataslate. Am I a bit concerned about Armour of Contempt? Admittedly, a little. But there isn't much room to wiggle around and redesign what I feel already works best for my playstyle and for the meta as a whole right now. Should be really exciting to see how this shakes out.
What Secondaries & matchups does your list for Dallas favor?
Apollo: Retrieve Nachmund Data, Stranglehold and To The Last. Factions I do well into should be anything that is immobile, or shooty factions.
Brian: I’m considering a combo with Oaths of Moment, Stranglehold and Investigate Signal for all the 5 objective missions because my army plays into that strongly with ways to shoot and still perform actions! On the other missions I’ll have to make a tougher game time decision.
Chad: Other melee armies or slow armies seem to have a tough time into me. They'll rarely get efficiency on the units they've taken and their resources will dwindle fast.
As far as Secondaries I've come to love Engage/Stranglehold, A Deadly Performance/To the Last, And a kill secondary or psychic secondary depending on the Matchup.
Carmine: Stranglehold on 5 objectives. The rest is reactive to my opponents forces.
Brandon: My list is built with the ability to Oaths of Moment rather easily, most of my units are relatively fast and can get to the center easily. I also keep Raise the Banners High in mind with the Phobos units. The lethality of most of my units will also allow me to trade back and forth on objectives in order to Stranglehold. Unfortunately I still believe my units to be a little softer, so I don’t think grind is very good in most matchups. I will bring a utility librarian with a jump pack In order to interrogate, Pierce the veil, or ritual if needed.
Connor: As Grey Knights, purifying ritual is a given. Alongside that, I have some spice with objectives thanks to the Persevers Brotherhood, so I'll be looking to go for Stranglehold more often than not, and I have some good play with Grind Them Down and To The Last, depending on the match up. I can also flex into Retrieve Nachmund Data fairly easily because of the amount of deepstrike in the list. As for matchups, I'm fairly confident going into just about anyone. I think I might even stand a chance against Harlequins with the amount of stormbolters Grey Knights just incidentally have.
David: I believe my list is favoring a 5 objective map with taking secondaries like Oaths of Moment and Stranglehold. I have the speed and tanky ways to get on a point quickly, hold it, and survive to take down an opponent with my power and attacks. The other secondaries I’m tooled great for is taking Retrieve Nachmund Data or Raise the Banner High.
Kevin: Knights in general don't have a great picklist of Secondaries. Imperial Knights got Yield No Ground in replace of Stranglehold, but that is definitely a strong one for me and usually fairly consistent with how my army is constructed. From there, the choices get limited and rely fairly heavily on my opponent. In most cases it falls to a kill Secondary of some kind and Grind Them Down.
With so many new Codexes floating around, I am unsure as to who I go well into 100%. My focus is mostly on board control, which means any army that is slow I can generally play well into. But with Armour of Contempt out in the wild now, Deathguard may prove to be a real problem - which I think is only fair.
What matchups are you worried about and why?
Apollo: Deathwatch, Tyranids (the Mortal Wound build) and Salamanders.
Brian: I’m not looking forward to the 10 man terminator bricks from Thousand Sons and Death Guard that we’re sure to run into now. Other marine armies are tougher all together so it will be an interesting shake up in Dallas for sure.
Chad: Funny enough the mirror & Imperial Guard. I think we are all aware of the Tyranid menace now in the metagame, but as far as just straight hammers to my nail, Imperial Guard just seems like more saves than anything in my army is willing to make. I think in the same regard a well tuned Iron Hands list can be a thorn in my side.
Carmine: Harlequins. Light Harlequins turn custodes into junk. Dark harlequins trade off too well. They are the rock to custodes scissors. I’d rather play the new hotness that is Tyranids than more Harlequins.
Brandon: Even though they got nerfed, I think that Harlequins in the Dark Saedath is a terrifying foe against any melee army.
Connor: Tyranids. Man, am I worried about Tyranids. I've only played one game against the new book, but it was enough to let me know that I want none of it. It seems like one of the most deadly books I've seen in ninth, and that's saying something. But hopefully all the bug players will be at the higher tables, leaving us mid tier players in peace.
David: I am worried about lists that have a large mortal wound ability in the shooting or psychic phase. That’s one major weakness I have is not being able to deal with and survive mortal wounds and losing too many units trying to get in the middle of the board or in close combat.
Kevin: The Balance Dataslate makes it kind of difficult to determine how things make shake out game-to-game. Having anywhere from 9 to 27 Melta shots in a given turn could have some significant impact. However, against AoC this means most everything has at least a 6+ Armour Save. Otherwise, anything that simply tells my army "no" worries me. Custodes may have been hit with the bat, but a properly timed shut down of rerolls for 1CP could still have some real impact here.
Tyranids may present a problem with their Mortal Wound output. Though, my army may play well into them. But they do worry me.
What are you hoping your final record will be after 8 rounds at Dallas?
Apollo: 6-2
Brian: If I go 50/50 and make one new friend I’ll consider it a championship weekend!
Chad: I like to aim high, not out of any sort of confidence, but to always push myself and constantly improve. It puts me in a mindset to play smart and do what I can in every round and every turn. That being said, 7-1 or 6-2 would be tremendously nice.
Carmine: 6-2
Brandon: Seeing as I’m hard swapping army’s and I’m not as experienced on blood angels, I’d be happy to break even at 4-4.
Connor: I managed to go 4-4 last year with a pretty subpar Imp Knights list, so I'm aiming to get a positive record this year! 6-2 is the goal, but 5-3 would also be nice. And to be honest, as long as I break even I'll take it.
David: I am hoping to go at least 2-6. I still new to the tournament scene and trying to get my secondaries down and quickly adapting to playing many different armies by opponents. My dream scenario to walk away from Dallas is 4-4.
Kevin: As stated, I definitely want to improve on what I did last year. Ideally I would love to hit a whopping 7-1 at best, but I'll settle for a reverse of my performance last year with a 5-3.
Well that’s it for this view into what Team Ettin & some amazing guests expect at Dallas Open!
As always make sure you listen to the Tabled Talk podcast and shop for all of your wargaming related goodies right here, Ettin Games even ships worldwide! Thanks for reading!
