Hullraiser GT 9/10 Dec
This week myself and a veritable mob of the DRG team entered a GT in the teams local stomping ground of Hull. This week I took my brothers Sororitas army, in an effort to understand their strengths and play style, as I have long held the opinion that they are a strong army that can go toe to toe at the highest tables.
Spoiler alert: When you make 50% of the field, a team podium is not unexpected.
As usual, lets begin with the list
Saint Celestine
Triumph of Saint Katherine (WL)
Cannoness
Dialogus
Palatine (Blade of Saint Ellynor)
Callidus Assassin
2 x 10 Battle sisters squads (Meltagun, Multi-meta)
3 x 10 Arco-Flagellants
2 x 2 Crusaders
2 x 5 Seraphim
Castigator (Autocannon)
Immolator (Flamers)
2 x Rhinos
2 x Exorcists
A siginificantly more body heavy list than ones I have taken recently, but built for board control, unfortunately I made some mistakes in the wargear selections that really hurt me, but are down to the speed I copied this list into my warhammer app rather than any consious choice around the loadouts.
I had a basic understanding of the list and how it wanted to play, and sisters have a lot of shennanigans and moving parts that need to line up, so naturally my first experience with them would be playing them in a GT against some of the best players in the team… So without further ado, lets get into the games.
Game 1: Space Wolves (Ironstorm Marines)
My game 1 was coincidentally my only non DRG game, I faced off against Josh and a dreadnought based ironstorm list, this is a tough match for sisters as I do not pack much anti tank (basically just the multi meltas) and even then it is at relatively low AP which is good news for his T10, 2+ save army. I did, predicatbly, struggle with the walkers for a few turns, however the insane survivability of Arco-flagellants with their 4+ Feel no pain and 2 wounds really enabled me to hang in there and grind out primary scoring to secure a very close win in the last round thanks to Celestine standing back up. My mistakes here was not commiting with enough on my go turn, sisters really require a turn where you throw lots of pieces in across the board at once, rather than feeding single trading pieces in at a time.
Sisters win: 69-66
Game 2: Black Templars (Vanguard Spearhead)
Game 2 saw me take on another marines list, this time an interesting list from Steven and his Black templars, 2 x 5 scouts, 2 lancers, bolter aggressors, and of course - a bucket of Inceptors.
The mission on this was the ritual, with the twist rule of scrambler fields, which helped me as the inceptors could not drop down onto the objectives themselves to flip them back. Fortunately I went second and thanks to the goonhammer terrain I was able to deploy with the majority of my army being protected. This game I focussed much more on staging for a single go turn, however I made some key charges and was able to move block the aggressors for 3 turns and really hamper the primary scoring for my opponent, who was only able to score 10 all game.
The list started to feel a lot more cohesive and I started to see how the parts come together to make a very strong scoring capability, that really wanted to lean into for the next round.
Sisters win: 88-48
Game 3: Leagues of Votann
My game 3 was into Steve #2 (There are 4 steves in our team) and Votann, a very strong list that I had helped build up with Greg, our other resident votann specialist, and given my time with the faction I was very confident in its ability to delete my entire army in about 2 turns flat, this meant that I had to deploy very safely and when I got first turn I knew I had to set up for a turn to be able to screen out the hearthguard - both from their drops and the rapid ingress threat. When this came I had to sacrifice my Callidus to score homers and threaten the backfield, and by pushing both my crusaders and a unit of seraphim I was able to lock out most of the board for deepstrikes. This gained me the time I needed for the third turn being able to force the final brick of hearthguard into the far corner in his deployment zone and away from all the objectives on the map.
Steve played it very well but ultimately this came down to my more experienced understanding of the Votann and ability to screen.
Sisters win: 92-73
Game 4: Aeldari
In the evening we had the pairings revealed for the next day, and as I had worried might happen, I paired into my brother. This was a concern for me as he is truly a faction specialist with sisters and his eldar list built entirely around units that can reposition easily (3x scourges, 3x shadow spectres, 3x mandrakes, etc.) I was immediately at a disadvantage. However I was able to form a game plan that meant if I got first turn I would be able to have a fighting chance, so you can imagine my joy when I rolled a 1 for the first turn roll off…
With an uphill battle ahead of me, I had to try and push a lot of screens out, fast. this worked well, however due to the terrain and search and destroy deployment I was unable to prevent all the firing lines, and on the eldar drop turn I lost a significant chunk of my mobility from my vehicles.
Unfortunately I was unable to dig myself out of the hole, and could only hang on long enough to score bottom of turn scoring for a last minute grab at points. Unfortunately this game was decided by Brendans deeper understanding of sisters and a list that was very good at killing at range.
Aeldari Win: 67-56
Game 5: Tyranids (Vanguard Onslaught)
Game 5, the last chance at my 4-1 target. So naturally I paired into one of our veterans and most skilled players, Greg. Running a very nasty vanguard onslaught nids list. This list was built to score and deny primary - 50 Gargoyles and about 8 ways to force battleshock on key units. I was prepared to dig in and hopefully keep up with Purge points from killing things. This was a fantastically close game, coming down to the very last roll of the last turn to decide it. However I did make 2 key mistakes during the last turn rush that meant I was unable to protect my last character and causing a slightly deflating 1 point loss than sent Greg to the podium in 2nd place.
Upsetting to lose from a very strong position, but that is part of the game and why its usually a good idea to play at least 1 or 2 games with an army before taking it to an event you know will have some very strong players.
Closing thoughts
Overall I am happy with the 3-2 performance, taking me to a 5th place finish. With one loss to the actual faction specialist of the team, and the other one down entirely to player mistakes (that I wont make again) - Sisters definitely have a lot of play into a lot of the field, and I can see ways to optimise the list to be even more nasty. I did reconfirm my view that they are no slouch and definitely expect to see them at more events once some of the current big bads get tuned down a bit (however I think that hyper mobile eldar list is also going to start popping up a lot more too - at least in our team games). Would be interesting to take them forward again and definitely feel like I could 4-1 / 5-0 consistently with a bit more practice.
In the end DRG ended up claiming the placings for 1st all the way through to 8th. A great result for the team.
Also coming this week: I will be entering the festive spirit with my first christmas themed video - tackling Da Red Gobbo, which will be going live later this week.
Coming to a channel near you….
