Rage Cursed Onslaught Written Tournament Report

Welcome back to another installment of “Jaden speedpaints an army and takes it to a tournament” which is more or less what my entire Warhammer career has been.

This time, it’s Rage-Cursed Onslaught with a spicy list featuring a big pile of Death Company.

The general game plan is to put a Chaplain on a big and small death company unit, the fights first enhancement naturally going with the larger squad, Lemartes on the second large Death Company unit, and then Dante and a Jump Pack Captain on two units of Sanguinary Guard.

This leaves the third unit of Sanguinary Guard unled – although in some extreme melee matchups I think putting the second Chaplain on this one is appropriate – and gives you a nice scoring package of Scouts, Callidus Assassin, and Intercessors while the Dreadnoughts act as distractions or disruptive elements with their Blood Surge moves and the ability to sticky objectives on death with the stratagem.

I was very lucky to participate in a 14 player RTT this past weekend in Spokane, and had the presence of mind to document the majority of the rounds.

Every game was played on terrain layout 1 for TO sanity.

Round 1 vs. Tyranids

For round one I found myself paired into a lovely guy named Jared, who was attending his first ever tournament! He had a very cool Tyranid list in Assimilation Swarm which I had never seen before.

We were playing Purge the Foe for the first round on Hammer and Anvil deployments.

I won the attacker and defender roll and deployed fairly conservatively as he had a lot more guns than me (read: any).

I opted to put the unit of Sanguinary Guard with the Captain in deep strike, as well as Lemartes and his Death Company. This was common across the three games today.

My deployment, from top to bottom is the unled Sanguinary Guard, a Death Company Dread, Scouts forward a smidge with Intercessors and the big Death Company unit behind.

Dante and his boys hung out in the crook of the buildings, while the small Death Company unit and the other Dreadnought staged at the bottom. My Callidus Assassin is off frame to the bottom left in the corner.

Jared’s Deployment has a Psychophage, Assimilator, Swarmlord with his Buddies, and a Maleceptor in his big corner terrain bunker, with a pair of Pyrovores hiding behind the wall on the center right objective. He has the Exocrine and Haruspex in the center, with two more Psychophages bookending the Neurotyrant and Zoanthropes and the second Assimilator at the bottom of the board edge.

I won the roll off for first, both Assimilators picked the objectives directly in front of them to be their special places, and we were off.

Blood Angels 1:

I drew the horrific combination of Overwhelming Force and No Prisoners on turn 1, so I moved up cautiously with most of my army after I stickied the home objective with Intercessors. I pushed the fight first unit of Death Company up against the forward center wall, put the Dreadnoughts in Heroic Intervention range of most things, and kept Dante back as wave 2.

I pitched Overwhelming force for a CP.

This picture was taken right after Jared started moving his things around on his turn which is why there is a random Psychophage up top.

Tyranids 1:

Jared drew Assassination and Sabotage for round 1, and came at me aggressively. His bottommost Psychophage lined up some shots on the unit of Death Company on the objectivem and the top objective became the staging ground for another Psychophage.

The bottommost Psychophage flamed a Death Company to death, and then charged in. I opted for a Heroic Intervention from my Death Company Dreadnought, and though the Psychophage killed two more Death Company in melee, the big guy polished the bug off. Sadly, I was about 1/4 inch too big to consolidate the Dreadnought onto the objective with how everything was positioned, so I lost control over it at the end of the turn.

That said, I did score Purge for 4 and No Prisoners for two, so all was not lost.

Blood Angels 2:

I scored 4 on Primary, controlling 2 objectives to Jared’s three, and drew Cull the Horde (discarded), Behind Enemy Lines, and Marked for Death.

Jared marked three completely unexposed models and I chose the other bottom Psychophage as my Gamma Target. I also chose it as my Oaths of Moment target.

I decided to play this turn fairly passively as well, putting both Dreadnoughts in firing range of the bottom Psychophage, and advancing the unled unit of Sanguinary Guard up top. They received an investment of 1 CP to advance shoot and charge, and also fell prey to the Red Thirst as a result.

Both of my Dreadnoughts’ shooting bounced off the bottom Psychophage fairly horrifically, doing a couple points of damage. The Death Company that remained charged into it, and the Sanguinary Guard charged into the other unit at the top of the board.

The Sanguinary Guard were angry and picked their target up with no issues. The Death Company were not angry and failed to kill their Psychophage, losing every model on the backswing.

Sadly, I had not scored my Gamma and I wasn’t about to keep Behind Enemy Lines either, so I dropped both secondaries for a CP. I did get a 4 on Purge, but Jared had already tied me on kills so I was dubious that I’d be scoring any more than that this round.

Tyranids 2:

Jared scored 4 on Primary and drew Cull the Horde (discarded) and Display of Might.

He moved up aggressively, getting both Norns into the game and bringing out his Hive Guard, Swarmlord, and Pyrovores.

I used Rapid Ingress to get Lemartes’ unit down on the bottom right of the table.

Not a whole lot of shooting happened this round, but both Norns charged in and ate their prey – a unit of Sanguinary Guard and a Death Company Dread respectively – while the Psychophage chomped down on the Chaplain to score Jared Assassinate.

He also massively out Displayed me for that secondary, and got 8 points on Purge the Foe – a good turn!

Blood Angels 3:

This turn, Jared opted for a Shadows in the Warp, which battle shocked everything except my Chaplain-led Death Company unit and the remaining Dreadnought. I had just drawn Cleanse and Defend Stronghold, so that made things a little awkward for my secondaries for the third turn in a row.

My Intercessors ran away, my big Death Company units came up (Lemartes’ unit got massively overwatched), and the Death Company Dreadnought came to party with the Norn on the bottom.

My shooting phase passed in an eyeblink, and we were into the charges. The Haruspex used Heroic Intervention to blunt a little of the Death Company output into the Zoanthropes, and all of my charges connected. The big Death Company unit that had not battleshocked popped the +1 Strength and AP strat, succumbing to the Red Thirst in the process and I killed a LOT of things.

The Death Company unit led by the Chaplain killed all of the Hive Guard, the Swarmlord, and both Pyrovores.

The other Death Company unit killed every Zoanthrope.

Dante and his boys helped the Dreadnought kill the Norn Assimilator, and then they consolidated into the Psychophage to tie it up as well.

I did lose a lot of Death Company on the backswing to the Haruspex and the Neurotyrant, leaving me with three plus Lemartes, but I felt like I’d had a good turn and was probably still in the game.

I pitched Cleanse, scored 4 (spoilers: would be 8) on Purge, and shipped the turn.

Tyranids 3:

Jared drew Secure No Man’s Land and Recover Assets, as well as scored four on Primary.

He had a shooting phase that consisted of the Maleceptor and Exocrine blasting away 7 Death Company in the center, and then charged his Norn Assimilator into the unit despite my warnings they could fight first.

At some point before that all happened my last unit in Deep Strike arrived in his back field via Rapid Ingress for free thanks to the Captain reduction.

The four heroes of the Imperium above fought first and serious punched it off the table before it got to hurt them back, handing Jared a large but reasonable amount of saves which he then promptly failed 90% of.

The Psychophage failed to kill any Sanguinary Guard but also refused to die, all the remaining Death Company in Lemartes’ unit also died, and Lemartes chipped away at the Haruspex.

Jared scored a small Secure No Man’s Land and discarded Recover Assets. He scored 4 on Purge having killed the Death Company unit on the bottom of the table, but I scored an additional four having killed a bunch of stuff.

Blood Angels 4:

I scored 4 on Primary once again, drawing Extend Battle Lines and Engage on all Fronts.

The plan this turn was simple – kill everything.

Oaths went onto the Exocrine, and I went to work. The Intercessors advanced back to the center of the board to sticky that objective for the second time.

The Death Company Dreadnought moved up to menace the Neurothrope, and the newly arrived Sanguinary Guard unit came up to tickle the Exocrine.

The Dreadnought failed to kill the Neurothrope in shooting (but Dante and his boys killed their Psychophage with Inferno Pistols), and that was alright because it let the Dreadnought charge the Neurothrope, tank shock it to death, and then pile-in to the Haruspex.

I was able to take all of the bugs off the table aside from the Maleceptor this turn, but I’d ever so slightly screwed up my positioning for Engage on All Fronts thanks to all the self inflicted battle-shocking I was doing, leaving me to score a solitary point there.

Tyranids 4:

Jared scored four from his Maleceptor and drew Storm Hostile Objective (discarded immediately), Establish Locus, and No Prisoners).

His Maleceptor shot something to death (Intercessors probably?) and stayed on the objective.

Blood Angels 5:

I scored 8 on Primary, drawing Recover Assets and Sabotage.

The Callidus, Scouts, and Dante’s unit covered the actions, while the rest of my army honed in on the Maleceptor like flies to honey.

Between guns, grenades, and some charges, the last bug went down, scoring me 8 more on Purge to close out the game.

The final score here was 79 – 51, and if a couple things had gone slightly better Jared’s direction (A Norn Assimilator not dying to 4 Death Company on the charge for example), it would have been even closer. That said, I feel like this is a fairly good matchup for me as my units trade up very well into things without invulnerable saves, and I’m significantly faster than he is.

Those first three rounds of secondaries were extremely rough though, I’ll need to think about how to mitigate that a bit better going forward – maybe cycling through secondaries aggressively is the thing to do on turn 1 and 2 if I’m not going to need to fight on death.

Round 2 vs. Ultramarines

After a nice lunch break, it was time for round 2. There were 14 players starting the day off and this particular event was using points as first tiebreaks so I was in 7th and ended up pairing down into a gentleman named Craig. Craig had a very pretty Ultramarine army in Blade of Ultramar and was quite knowledgeable about what my stuff did as his son apparently plays Blood Angels as well!

This mission was Take and Hold, and we were playing on Search and Destroy.

Craig won the attacker/defender roll and had me deploy first since he had somewhat less drops than I did. I put the same pair of units in deep strike as I had in the first game, and Craig put his single unit of Jump Pack Intercessors in the sky as well.

My deployment is really compact because I do NOT want to get shot turn one. My Intercessors are spread out from the objective up to the wall on the top ruin, and I am hiding the small Death Company unit there too. The unled Sanguinary guard distraction piece is pressed up in a fairly safe bubble such that the only way Craig can really get at them is to go Devastator doctrine turn 1, get a pretty good advance roll with his Repulsor, and then give me a Repulsor for the unit of Sanguinary Guard (a good trade I feel).

The big unit of Death Company and Dante’s Sanguinary Guard are huddling in the bottom side of my “home” ruin, while the Dreadnoughts take flanking positions.

The Callidus is in the back corner, and my Scouts are on the top left objective.

Craig also has Scouts on his expansion objective (bottom right), and his Combi-Lieutenant is chilling in the middle.

His deployment is also fairly boxed in. Both Repulsors are visible, but his Incursors and Intercessors are snugged up in that left side building with Guilliman. Calgar and friends are hiding behind his “bottom” ruin wall on his home L shape, and the Redemptors are clearly visible.

I once again won the roll off, and we begin!

Blood Angels 1:

I drew up incredible secondaries (No Prisoners, Marked for Death) and chose to Gamma mark the Lieutenant which I had absolutely no intentions of going after.

I staged up aggressively, keeping Dante back and pushing forward with the Death Company unit behind my favorite ruin and the unled Sanguinary Guard 1.1 off the wall in my “safe” ruin in the middle (you can see a flag poking up).

My Intercessors rolled a nice advance roll and were able to get onto the expansion objective, which would free my Scouts up to go back into reserves next turn.

I was comfortable putting my Death Company unit where they are because even though it’s a relatively easy charge for the Victrix, it would require Craig to roll a 5+ on his advance to draw line of sight…with only Calgar, so the unit isn’t getting shot much and I have the fights first enhancement. I absolutely won’t be getting to kill the whole unit without +1 S and +1 AP (you have to charge to use that stratagem), but I don’t need to kill the whole unit to make that worth the trade for me.

I pitched Marked for Death and kept No Prisoners.

Ultramarines 1:

Craig drew Establish Locus and Engage on all Fronts, which was also not a particularly ideal set of draws.

He decided that aggression was the better play here, opting to poke his middle Repulsor out and to castle up behind Calgar’s unit with the Redemptors so that if I wanted to get an easy charge he could overwatch with something.

His top Repulsor also moved out just slightly.

He pitched Establish Locus, got a point on Engage, and shipped it over to me. The Scouts and Callidus went into reserves at the end of his turn.

Blood Angels 2:

I scored 10 on Primary and drew Sabotage to complement my No Prisoners.

This turn played out really nicely, but I had a couple of important order of activations that I followed here which made things work out properly for me. I put Oaths of Moment on the top Repulsor.

First, I knew he wanted to Overwatch with his middle Repulsor onto my Death Company unit, so I started off by rolling an advance with the forward unit of Sanguinary Guard. I needed them to advance so I could spend a CP to make them advance, shoot, charge, and get battleshocked because their job was to tie up the other Repulsor in the exact position it was in so that I could move a Dreadnought out and only expose it to one of the big guns.

Once every other unit had moved up, I scooched the Death Company up the barest of inches to where the line from the ruin was hiding them from the Repulsor. Craig opted to not overwatch with the Redemptor because the quantity of shots was unlikely to matter – fair enough.

I dropped the Callidus on my backline to screen the Jump Pack Intercessors, and I aggressively brought my Scouts in on the top edge to screen them out there as well – this prevented them from getting to my expansion objective where my Intercessors were going to perform a Sabotage.

I chose to not shoot at the Calgar unit with anything (no blood surge for thee, only for me), but I did throw a grenade at it which killed a single Victrix.

Shooting from the Sanguinary Guard into the top Repulsor did 5 damage, and I finished off the shooting phase by chipping some damage into the center Repulsor with the Dreadnought.

My charge phase saw us both deplete the CP stockpile we were sitting on. From me, I gave the Death Company unit +1 S, +1 AP, and battleshock, and Craig used Armor of Contempt and the -1 to wound Stratagem, making the whole pile of my attacks significantly less scary.

Unfortunately, they were still scary enough, and the entire Calgar unit evaporated before I got to the Eviscerators or the Chaplain. This list was designed to eat Victrix, and it sure delivered here.

The big surprise came at the top of the board, where the three Sanguinary Guard finished off the Repulsor all on their own.

I was initially surprised by this, but in hindsight the math is actually pretty good here. Once it’s down to 11, I need six wounds to go through. They make 18 attacks, rerolling hits for Oaths of Moment and hitting on 2s. 17-18 hits. They wound on 5s with Lance, but they’re reolling 1s to wound so they should get somewhere between 6 and 8 through. At AP 2, the Repulsor is saving on 5s, which means it gets somewhere between 1 and 3 saves and there is plenty of room in there for that to work out nicely in my favor.

I opted to avoid consolidating into anything, scored 5 on No Prisoners, and shipped the turn back over.

Ultramarines 2:

Craig got his 10 on Primary, drew Cleanse and Marked for Death (Dante, safe Death Company Dreadnought, Intercessors – he Gamma Marked the Death Company) and then used Double Oaths from Guilliman to hit the Death Company and the Sanguinary Guard.

I was able to rapid ingress Lemartes’ unit behind the same staging wall on this turn, setting up to put the hurt on the Redemptors.

Speaking of, Craig’s Redemptors absolutely popped off here, with the first one killing 7 Death Company in shooting and the other one finishing off the entire unit.

His Repulsor only found its way to one wound on my Dreadnought, which hero mode saved it on a six.

Guilliman and co. shot and stabbed the Sanguinary Guard to death.

With the Scouts cleansing the bottom objective and the destruction of his Gamma target, Craig scored 4 points on secondaries and pushed it back to me, wherein I promptly put my Scouts and Callidus back into reserves.

Blood Angels 3:

I scored my 15 on Primary and drew Secure No Man’s Land and A Tempting Target (bottom right objective: shocker).

I put Oaths of Moment on the Repulsor.

This turn, I chose to use advance, shoot, and charge on the forward Dreadnought, so that it would have plenty of space to choose to either charge the Repulsor or the Redemptor.

Craig brought his Jump Pack Intercessors in behind the small terrain on the top of the board, and I was able to kill one with incidental shooting.

My small unit of Death Company moved right up in the gap between his main deployment buildings, and Lemartes’ unit moved up to have their choice of charge targets as well.

Between shooting, charging, and grenades, all three vehicles fell apart. Lemartes’ unit engaged Craigs’ Scouts and held that objective for me, and the small Death Company unit was able to consolidate onto Craigs’ home objective after killing the Repulsor and steal that from him as well.

I scored my 10 points for Secondaries and passed the turn over.

Ultramarines 3:

With resources rapidly dwindling, Craig chose to go into Assault Doctrine this turn and picked up Bring it Down and Area Denial.

His Jump Pack Intercessors advanced to fairly close to my Intercessors, and the rest of his forces (Incursors, Intercessors, Guilliman) walked leisurely over to my Death Company unit.

Guns took the aforementioned blood crazed psychos out, and his Jump Packs charged my Intercessors, taking great pains to stay outside 6″ of the unit of Sanguinary Guard that had rapid ingressed there for free.

In a bizarre turn of events, the Jump Pack Intercessors killed 2 Intercessors, and my Sergeant with Power Fist popped off and nuked 3 of the JPI back for their troubles. The Scouts evaporated under the Death Companies’ watchful power fists, and Craig sent it back to me.

Blood Angels 4:

I scored another 15 and drew Extend Battle Lines and Recover Assets.

My Sanguinary Guard came to say “hello” to the final member of the Jump Pack unit – I took this picture because it became confusing very quickly which blue and red models belonged to who at some point.

Lemartes’ unit decided to go suicide themselves into the rest of Craigs’ army, which they did very happily killing everything but Guilliman and losing more than half of their number on Guilliman’s crackback.

There’s a Callidus Assassin hiding in Craigs’ deployment zone corner but we agreed to just leave her off the board to not break her, and she, Dante, and my Scouts went ahead and Recovered some Assets for me while I held a bunch of objectives for Extend.

Ultramarines 4:

Craig drew several objectives here, the relevant one being Storm Hostile. Guilliman walked back over to the Death Company, killed them all, and sat on his objective.

Blood Angels 5:

I drew Display of Might and Behind Enemy Lines, scored my 15, dropped my reserves models in Craigs’ deployment zone, and ran every other model as far away from Guilliman as they could get.

Ultramarines 5:

Craig drew Overwhelming Force and Defend Stronghold. Guilliman took some potshots at the Callidus Assassin, who dodged, and stood on his home objective to get a last few victory points as the game ended.

Final score this game ended up being 95 – 37 in my favor. My team designed this list to obliterate Ultramarines, and it sure seemed to do that.

Craig and I had a good chat after the game about positioning, and I think he would have benefited from either making Calgar’s unit unchargeable behind their original ruin, or sucking it up and going for the charge into the Death Company (he may have charged them actually, but failed the roll – memory is hazy here).

I also think the Repulsors needed to have units screening for them so that I could not tie them up in his deployment zone, and we looked at some other ways he could deploy his list.

I got a super nifty trophy helmet from Craig on the way out, and I gave him one of my Oath of Moment tokens. I look forward to seeing him at future events!

Round 3 vs. Astra Militarum

Dale is a good friend of mine, and is actually the man responsible for this space marine army existing in some ways.

He’s playing Grizzled Veterans, which is a detachment I’m quite afraid of in general, but he’s got a lot more melee elements than most of them so I might be able to do something here.

I lost the roll for first, which is very nice, as we are playing Lynchpin and I hate going first on Lynchpin.

Astra Militarum 1:

I started the usual suspects off the table, and I didn’t get a picture of deployment unfortunately. Mine is similar to the picture below, Dale’s was quite a bit different.

This game, someone else got to draw unscoreable secondaries turn 1, with Dale drawing Overwhelming Force and Sabotage.

He put a token unit of Bullgryn forward, but other than that moved back or held his position, waiting to see what I would do. I was fairly happy to see this, as turn 2 and 3 I can start delivering homing missiles into his backlines and clearing out the Dorns, which, with his Kasrkin bombs, are the things I am most afraid of.

Blood Angels 1:

I drew Extend Battle Lines and Secure No Man’s Land, and decided to make a little castle giving up as little as possible. The plan was roughly this – the Dreadnought on the top can only be shot by one Dorn, and if that kills it then I accept and I’ll sticky the objective and score points. It’s going to have access to Armor of Contempt though, and I think that will be okay.

In the center, I’ve put the unled unit of Sanguinary Guard just kissing the objective, about 14 inches from the Bullgryn which is not a reliable charge, and unshootable by anything but the Kasrkin bricks which I will happily trade my Sanguinary Guard for.

In either case, I’ve also moved Dante up so that anything in combat with the Sanguinary Guard will have to take a battleshock at -1, which could potentially turn off the army AND detachment rules for whatever is fighting them.

Astra Militarum 2:

Dale has yet to contest a center objective, so he only scores 3 on Primary here. He draws Assassination to complement Overwhelming Force, which he kept from last turn.

He does send the forward Taurox with its Kasrkin load forward and then builds a little castle of his own behind his terrain piece with all the Emperor’s Horsies and all the Emperor’s men.

I drop the Lemartes unit behind the top piece of terrain to threaten the Dorn Commander behind Dale’s main deployment building.

The Kasrkin, to the surprise of no one, clear out the Sanguinary Guard with little issue.

He scores Overwhelming for 3 and pitches Assassinate.

Blood Angels 2:

I score 8 on Primary and draw Recover Assets and No Prisoners. I am, once again, under no pressure to move forward and decide I to flex that leeway. Oaths goes on the Kasrkin, and the combination of Intercessor shooting and Death Company shooting clears both the Kasrkin and the Taurox.

The Death Company up top charge and obliterate the Dorn Commander, but the Bullgryn there have used a Heroic Intervention to get into combat and BOY do those things hit hard. Even with -1 damage, I lose most of the Lemartes squad for my troubles.

I’ve Recovered Assets with a couple things, killed three units for No Prisoners, and asked what Dale would like to do about that before passing over.

Astra Militarum 3:

Dale scores 3 more on Primary and draws Behind Enemy Lines and Display of Might.

This turn, he sends the forces forward en masse, putting one unit of Rough Riders up on the other side of my far ruin to try for a 7″ charge into Dante, the Bullgryn to charge into stuff in the center, and the Rough Riders to charge the Dreadnought.

Kasrkin unit #2 comes out to play as well, and the Dorns forward to shoot at things. I drop my unit of Sanguinary Guard in his now relatively open backfield.

The Dreadnought in the center uses Armor of Contempt to weather the Dorn shooting at it, and then Blood Surges into combat with the Rough Riders near it. The Kasrkin also shoot it, but hitting at -1 is not what Guard like to do so it survives pretty handily.

His charge phase sees the 7″ Rough Rider charge fail, and then half his army fails their battle shock tests because Dante is right in the middle of things. This makes his Bullgryn pretty bad at fighting comparatively, and another Armor of Contempt sees the Dreadnought live to kill off the bulk of the Rough Riders.

Dale does score Display of Might, and pitches Behind Enemy Lines.

Blood Angels 3:

I score another 8, and draw Storm Hostile Objective and Bring it Down.

I’ve been holding back the bulk of my list to this point, and this turn I let it all loose. The small unit of Death Company move over the center fighting to get at one of the Dorns in the back. The Captain Sanguinary Guard join them.

The big unit of Death Company, which has been hiding in my deployment ruin this entire time, comes out to play as well, and Dante plants himself firmly in the middle.

Dale does a sneaky and drops Gaunts’ Ghosts 9″ away from my home objective Scouts (they’re hiding behind the ruin in this picture).

Shooting goes badly, but charging in with the whole army does feel very good, and at the end of the turn I’ve killed both Dorns, all of the Rough Riders, all of the Kasrkin, most of the Taurox, and 2 of the center Bullgryn.

As the dust settles, the remainder of the Astra Militarum army amounts to 10 Bullgryn, a mostly dead Taurox, a smattering of Kriegers left over from Lemartes’ squad smacking them around, a Commissar, and Gaunt’s Ghosts.

I’ve scored Bring it Down and Storm Hostile, so I pass it over.

Astra Militarum 4:

Dale brings the big Bullgryn unit out to fight my Dreadnought (they bounce off each other), the Gaunt’s Ghosts kill all my Scouts and steal my home, and the other Bullgryn unit charges the fights first unit of Death Company and all die in the process. He’s scored 3 more on Primary, and 2 on No Prisoners for the Scouts.

Blood Angels 4:

I score 9 for holding all three center objectives and draw A Tempting Target and Cull the Horde, which I can do because his Krieger unit is alive.

I send the big unit of Death Company back to my home objective to tangle with Gaunt and his friends, and the rest of my army addresses the remaining 4 Bullgryn, the remnants of the Kriegers, and the Commisar.

Annoyingly, a pair of Bullgryn refuse to die and drop a Sanguinary Guard on the backswing, but the rest of the plan goes smoothly and I pass it to Dale.

Astra Militarum 5:

Dale draws a smattering of secondary cards, none of which he can do. I fight with my Dreadnought in the ongoing scrum of Bullgryn vs. the World, and he kills them both, leaving me with the whole of my turn 5 to score points against an empty table.

My last turn, I draw Area Denial and Behind Enemy Lines, score max on Primary, and call it a day.

The final score here was 90 – 28, and a lot of that Dale and I agreed was due to him refusing to force the issue on scenario and letting me play as passively as I wanted until time ran out and he had to come get me. If he’d been keeping even on the primary, the game probably progresses quite a lot differently. As it was, I was able to scalpel his guns out and then fight an all melee fight which is exactly what I want to do.

Also, Dante turned off his army rule and his detachment rule on more than half his units for more than half the game. Sometimes, even a completely useless ability is pretty great.

Conclusion

I ended up second on tiebreaks, walked away with best painted, and couldn’t have asked for three more lovely opponents or a chiller day of Warhammer.

Rage-Cursed Onslought is VERY cool, and I’m enjoying playing it. I’ve already started finishing up details on the models that I rushed through to get done for this event, and I imagine I’ll be playing this or something very much like it at a couple of GTs this spring and a few more RTTs before the edition swap this summer messes everything up.

As always, thanks a ton for reading, and we’ll see you in the next one.