End of a Sentry

Tyranids

UK Regionals Top 4, UK Nationals Top......50. A tourney report from the Naughty table...

Obviously this comes from a slightly different angle to Varun's excellent and infinitely more informative decklist and report from the Nationals, but if you are a 'Nids fan or played against me on the day...or are bored at work...feel free to read on.

After a successful run at the UK Southern Regionals I took an almost-unchanged deck to the Nationals, ditching my STC Fragment for an extra No Mercy. I'd tried various tweaks to the deck in the intervening period but never settled on anything I was happy with, and in the end due to various external factors I simply ran out of practice time (in case you are wondering why I hadn't ditched the now rather devalued Shrieking Harpies).

My buddy Asklepios also recommended to me that I bring my Kugath deck seeing as it was performing so strongly in pre-tourney testing, but I'd already had my ‘day in the sun’ this year so my sense of loyalty prevailed, knowing full well that my deck's lack of answers to big-hitting units would undoubtedly see me punished (which of course turned out to be the case)

I was expecting lots of Eldorath, but that was OK as this deck has a pretty good track record against him. With decent command I felt I could even hold my own against Kith too. I knew that my deck struggled against big scary elites, units with high-attack values (particularly if the words ‘Ranged’ or ‘Armourbane’ were involved), and Ambush shenanigans. Basically anything that I couldn’t kill first before it knocked my Warlord out with one swing. So, with fingers crossed, my match-ups on the day were…..

Cato (with Elites), OOE (with Elites), Omega, Omega, Omega, and Aun-Shi…..Oh dear.


Round 1: Loss vs Old One Eye/Liktor (Nick). Turn 1 Nick played an Ymgarl Genestealer with Regeneration on planet 1, which I couldn't deal with. Turn 2 he played STC Fragment and another Elite and then another Elite... none of which I could deal with. I just didn't play very well in this game. Nick did. Hats off to him. Still, not the start I was hoping for.


Round 2: Win vs Omega/Maleceptor (Andrew). I bloodied Omega early on following which there was no way back into the game for him. A rare appearance from my Harpy too, riding in the slipstream of infestation my opponent had kindly created.


Round 3: Loss vs Cato Elites/Tau (Edward). He opened by playing an Ultramarines Dreadnaught to planet 1 (Tarrus too!). The F-word very nearly slipped out of my mouth at this point as Carnath + Plannum were also in play and the first 3 planets had matching icons. It was going to be an uphill struggle from here, and any slim chance I had was all but wiped out by a catastrophic mix-up whereby I inadvertently set my Warlord Dial while it was upside down - thus sending poor OOE off to Planet 1 to tackle the Dreadnought single-handedly whilst the Polluter sat uselessly next to a Y-Factored-up Hormagaunt on another planet. Knowing where the final battle would be I then resorted to plan B which was to swarm that planet with everything I had in my hand – namely a bunch of cheap ineffective units (I’d kept a strong command hand, you see). Edward’s response was to deploy a Daring Assault Squad there, thus cementing his victory.


Round 4: Loss vs Omega/Maleceptor (Ian). He aggressively attacked planet 1 from the get-go whilst I went for the long game, greedily milking Y'varn twice in a row and using the Polluter to set up hungry Raveners at Planets 4 & 5 ready to decimate his genestealer horde when they arrived. But he’d built up a considerable horde by turn 3. No matter, I felt I could prevail in the long run, as long as the final planet didn’t turn out to be Ferrin….. which of course it was. I was now having to send OOE to planet one to stay in the game, leaving me powerless to stop his Maleceptor from sitting on Ferrin and routing my ready Raveners over the final two turns, my copies of Backlash painfully absent. I must say Ian played the Omega-Maleceptor combo brilliantly.


Round 5: Loss vs Aun-Shi (Craig). I really didn't see this one coming. With initiative, he stuck a hard-hitting voltronned unit onto planet 1 on the first turn (Borkan Recruits plus Auxilliary Armour, I think). Turn 2 he used some kind of Kauyon Strike and For the Tau-Va combo to surprise-bloody me, so Turn 3 I committed OOE safely out of harm's way. But as soon as the first battle started he ambushed in a Prelate to OOE's planet, then played Even the Odds to move an Ion Rifle across to him, then played Kauyon Strike to move Aun-shi across. This meant he stole initiative so...... Checkmate. Probably the quickest game of Conquest I’ve ever played. It was an inspired play, and I was surprised that Craig hadn't won more games on the day: Presumably his other opponents weren't playing Tyranids 😉


Round 6: Win vs Omega/Liktor (Tom?). At 7pm I finally found my mojo, and probably could have played on all night and gone all the way to the final (had we cut to Top 50). Apologies to my opponent, but all I can remember is that this was a dream game for me: The various moving parts of my deck seemed to be well and truly oiled, with my Polluter darting between the planets with Striking Raveners, Volatile Pyrovores and tooled-up Lurking Hormagaunts in-tow. I felt like I was dipping my hand into Dumbledore's hat and pulling out whatever card I wished for: Need Ferocious Strength? You got it! No Mercy? Here, have two!


So. There it is. I did win a game against Zarathur in a friendly side-event afterwards, but that was about as effective as England bringing on Marcus Rashford against Iceland in the 81st minute - too late to make a difference [I also lost my other side event game against John's Cato with my Mavros deck, but rather conveniently I've forgotten the details...].

Aside from an ill-fated dalliance with Worr at the SCs I’ve predominantly been playing Old One Eye at tourneys since he first came out. I will never tire of playing OOE and no Warlord or deck gives me more pleasure to play with. But I am putting him into hibernation because in the new elite meta OOE feels a little bit....lost? Like Crocodile Dundee in New York but without the comedy factor. I just don't think he has enough answers for the current meta. Some people have suggested going the full Elite-heavy route, but as I’ve said elsewhere I think other factions do it much better: Just look at Varun’s Kugath deck! The trend towards big-hitting units also renders his Signature unit and his own ability near-obsolete, indeed my only real disappointment of the day is that I hardly got to play the usual Hornagaunt-OOE-Ferocious Strength-Ready tricks that have served me so well in the past.


Anyway, this is not a complaint or a moan or a “this is not fair” rant, because I am a big boy and could quite easily choose a different Warlord instead if I want to. In fact some of the new cards this cycle are tempting me to dust off my old Baharroth and Starblaze decks. I do love my underdogs!