37 - You Had One Job

In this episode of the "Grown Men Playing With Toys" podcast, the GMPWT 10th Edition All-Star Game gets its dramatic conclusion. The lists are built, the terrain is set, the store owner has been recruited as celebrity dice roller, and absolutely nobody is ready for what the Einhyr Champion is about to do to Steve's blood pressure.

Along the way they cover:

• Roll For Initiative, Lose For Free — why who was going first felt like a gift to both players and why only one of them was right about that
• Turn One: Steve the Rhino Hunter — two transports dead, two Deadly Demise rolls courtesy of your guest celebrity roller, and a Winged Hive Tyrant who showed up, looked scary, and then embarrassed everyone involved
• Bile and the Chosen: Still Not Your Problem Until Suddenly It Is — why Fabius Bile with 10 Chosen in a Rhino is Erik's favorite unit in 10th edition and Steve's least favorite thing to look across the table at
• You Had One Job — the Einhyr Champion and Steve's endless love/hate relationship with him.
• The Void Dragon Cleans Up — Cousin Josh's Necron Warriors twiddle their thumbs on their home objective while the C'tan does literally everything
• MVP and Magnus Awards — the heroes, the zeros, and one very expensive model who functioned primarily as a Distraction Carnifex with better hair
• The 11th Edition Cliffhanger — Steve's MVPs reveal a pattern and a new army might be on the horizon heading into the new edition

Whether you're here for the dice fails, the end-of-edition nostalgia, or just want to hear a store owner get genuinely invested in two grown men's war dollies.....this one's for you.

Check out our other content: https://gmpwt.blog/ | https://www.youtube.com/@GrownMenPlayingWithToys

Transcript

Intro

SPEAKER_03 0:00

There is one game that we played very early on in the edition where I played your Votan and you played Salamanders.

SPEAKER_01 0:07

Yeah, I know.

SPEAKER_03 0:08

And do you remember how that game ended? No. With the champion rolling a charge into a land raider on the center objective, and I rolled a six into another six. That's right. Kill a land raider with his ability and win the game. That is. Thanks to bring it down and get in control of that objective.

SPEAKER_01 0:34

I realize it's me. Like I realize that I too probably need to be putting time out. Eric, what have we been up to the past week?

SPEAKER_03 1:24

We played the 10th edition all-star game that we talked about last episode.

SPEAKER_01 1:29

Yes, yes, we did. We had one epic battle, I will say. I think um it was pretty cool. Um, I mean I have a question for you. Oh, sure.

SPEAKER_03 1:41

Go for it. What has the champion been up to for the last week?

SPEAKER_01 1:46

Well, you know, everybody needs a ditch digger every once in a while, you know what I mean? That guy is permanently put on you know, I joked at one point about potentially strapping him to a firework and shooting him into oblivion, and then someone said that's very much like the kid from Toy Story, and I'm like, oh yeah, that's not good. Yep.

SPEAKER_03 2:15

So, but yeah, we we played the 10th edition All-Star game, and it was a tremendous amount of fun.

SPEAKER_01 2:22

Yeah, it really was. We had a blast. I mean, um, you know, we we went down to your local game store, it was really cool. Um, you know, we we got center table right there in the middle of the store, so we could set the tone for the game, which was you know, it was kind of neat. Uh uh, everybody was coming in, it was right around like when school was out, so you know, you got different people floating in and out, and we were right there in the middle playing, and um, it was a lot of fun and a really, really cool uh environment at that store, and just yeah, it was really awesome.

SPEAKER_03 2:57

Yeah, it it was a lot of fun. The store owner was getting into it, which was pretty cool. I don't know that we can call it my LGS because I'm pretty sure after after the game, like you're the new norm, but that's okay. No, about that. I mean, I did get the Discord invite pretty quickly. I'm not gonna lie, I was kind of proud of myself. You got added to the pre-order list for the 11th edition launch box.

SPEAKER_01 3:26

Like, I just think he wanted to exploit me for my money. No, just kidding. No, it actually was really awesome. He was like, Hey, I'm I'm putting this pre-order, I'm really excited you guys are coming into play today. Like, do you want to get in on it? I was like, Yeah, of course, I'm ready for 11th. We're we're ready to you know blow this popsicle stand and let's get into the new thing, right? Yep. So, Eric, how do we want to set the stage for how this epic battle went down? Do you want to give like a quick overview again of like the kind of the two makeups of the list? And you don't have to go into detail if you don't want to, um, just because in our previous episode we did go into a little bit more detail about the list, but do you want to give like a quick rundown?

SPEAKER_03 4:15

Yeah, it it how about we do, and it's probably very stereotypical to our personalities. I'll walk through the lists and I'll walk through the details of the mission we played and how we set up the game, and then you can add the flavor text and set the stage, and then I'll kind of narrate. I didn't take notes, but from memory I'll narrate what happened roughly per turn, who went first, what the key things were, and and you can provide the the reactions and the the the booyahs and everything else to to emphasize it and we can we can laugh about the funny stories along the way because there were quite a few pretty cool moments.

SPEAKER_01 4:56

I feel attacked, but hey, you want to know something? You know who you know who else didn't take notes? Uh you no the champion because he failed his test in every regard.

SPEAKER_03 5:08

Well, it's just spoilers, come on. All right, so it I'll I'll start with just you know quick reminder of the

All-Star Game Concept and Rules Recap

SPEAKER_03 5:17

list. So we we played an all-star game that was Xenos versus Chaos. Each of us could pick from three factions, and the way we structured the list was you had to pick one faction kind of as the lead faction, and you got their army rule for just those units. Pick up second faction, which is like the alternate to the leader, and you got to pick one detachment that they had full access to, like full detachment rule, full detachment stratagems and enhancements, but again, only for that faction's units, and then one that was you know kind of third string, probably a minority of your units, where you got to pick the units, play the data sheets, and you got access to one stratagem. So you played Necrons in the army role position where you got reanimation, leagues of OTAN with access to the Need Guard Oath Band attachment, and then Tyranids with the Corrosive Viscera stratagem from Crusher Stampede, which meant all of your big Tyranid monsters blew up for one CP.

SPEAKER_00 6:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 6:25

Uh, and then I played Chaos, I had Emperor's Children with their army rule of Thrill Seekers, I had Chaos Space Marines playing the creations of Bile Detachment, but without dark packs, and then I had a lone chaos knight, the knight rampager, with access to the spiteful demise stratagem from Lords of Dread, which means he also blew up, I think, on a 3. And we basically set it up as a hey, let's see how this does. And we we built a list. I I can provide a link to the details of the list, but we built a list that had models that provided our favorite moments and stories from 10th edition, and we just played a game using all those and then laughed as they either performed or did not, in line with what we remember them for in 10th edition.

SPEAKER_01 7:20

So the coolest part was it kind it was a lot of fun. The whole thing was a lot of fun, um, regardless of score and all that other stuff. But it really kind of brought us back to a um, you know, a time, in my opinion, where you know, like it was a little beer and pretzels, right? Like we weren't we weren't necessarily, you know, trying to go out there and meta stomp each other. We weren't doing any of that. It was it was more of a let's see how this goes. Um, and it it was really cool.

Deployment and Mission Setup

SPEAKER_01 7:56

So um when we were setting up, one of the things that I thought was the coolest part was um I was kind of nervous about how models would look on the table with the different factions blended in. But it worked. It kind of worked. I don't know. It kind of um it kind of had like almost like a diorama feel, if you will, like when you set up, you know, after we did our deployment and everything, and and like you could you could see each little faction kind of it each faction's kind of personality, like in the way that it deployed too, like the different like specialties that each one brought, um, which I thought was was pretty cool. Um from a deployment perspective, I I I kind of felt like chaos was like, hey guys, long time no see, let's high-five each other. Yeah, we're on the same team for once, you know. That's awesome. And then on the Xeno side, they were kind of like, you know, it kind of felt like the the wallflowers at the eighth grade dance, you know, they kind of sitting in the corner, you know, kind of, you know, fixing their hair or whatever, not really sure how to ask each other to dance. Um, that's kind of when we were when we were deploying, that's kind of how it felt. Like, I don't know. Do you agree?

SPEAKER_03 9:14

Yeah, and I I think we mentioned as much when we were laying it out just from a list perspective of chaos felt really synergistic as a list. Like, and I we you know, spoiler alert, we saw this and we felt this when we played the game. Like, it felt like all those pieces fit nice and natural and neatly into each other, almost like chaos as a super faction has an overarching identity that ties all those those subfactions together. So that that part was really, really cool to see, and I think became an advantage in the game. And then to your point, Xenos, there's probably ways we could have made it more synergistic by choosing like if you had Tyranids and Gene Stealer cults together, well, that starts to feel more synergistic, or if you had like Eldari and Drukari together, that probably felt more synergistic. But it the way we set it up and the fact that we don't have access to all of those factions, it it was kind of like a team of oddballs where you're like, How did those three end up on the same team together? But the board layout, you're right, it looked really cool because you had like a Norn emissary standing next to 20 Necron warriors.

SPEAKER_01 10:35

Yeah, he's like, Hey boys, can't you reanimate me too? And they're like, No, dude, your job is just to go blow up. Yep. I mean, so funny enough, and and like uh you know, spoiler alert, right? Um, when we were setting up, I I'm deploying and I'm sitting here going, huh. So oddly enough, the Votan and the Tyranids kind of worked together. Yep. Like it kind of felt like I was like, oh, wait, okay, I can see the combinations here. I can see what I can do with this. All right, cool. And like, to be honest, some like the Norn and um the winged hive tyrant and things like that, they filled a little bit of a gap that I normally feel when I'm deploying tyranids. And I was like, or when I'm deploying Votan, I'm like, hmm, huh, this is kind of cool. And then and then we looked at the warrior blob.

SPEAKER_03 11:37

Cousin Josh's special boys stuck out like a sore thumb.

SPEAKER_01 11:44

Yeah, and then we're um and we're all kind of like, well, I'm not really sure what to do with you. And uh the mission is kind of telling me I have to stick you right here on my home objective because that's how I'm gonna score points. And I don't really want to do that, but there's not really much else I think I can do. Oh crap. Okay, so here we are, right? Turn one, right?

SPEAKER_03 12:08

Yep. So the and details for folks. We tried to keep it as vanilla warhammer as possible. So we played hammer and anvil deployment with GW terrain layout one, which felt the most fair and neutral from a providing decent board cover, given that Steve's army had more guns than mine, but both of us kind of wanted to get into the middle to mix it up, so there were enough shooting lanes that didn't neuter him and advantage me, but not so much that it turned it into a a Tau favored shooting gallery. So we I think that part was okay. The hindsight 2020, I think I might have changed it to take and hold. We played Purge the Fo. I don't think it changes the result, though. And and you know, it probably goes back to what we're gonna talk about as the game went on and some of the changes we would make to the list if we were gonna try and play a more competitive game. But our rationale in choosing Purge the Foe was we wanted something that you know led to a game where we were interacting with each other and we were engaging and the the factions were trying to kill each other, and so we wanted something that was gonna drive that interaction and not just be uh, you know, you stand on your side of the board, I stand on mine, and we wait until the fourth turn and then one of us runs out.

SPEAKER_01 13:42

I think I think taken hold still's tough. I I don't I don't I don't think it I really don't know that it would have mattered that much. Maybe a 10-point swing?

SPEAKER_03 13:52

Maybe um I don't think so, and and it'll play out as we talk through it because at the end of the day you played me closer on secondaries than on primaries.

SPEAKER_01 14:07

Which is odd for me, by the way. That is not my normal because I'm normally playing handicapped because I don't have as many secondary monkeys, so I I try to I try to uh covet those. But yeah.

SPEAKER_03 14:24

So it I don't know, it was fun, and then we so we we both deployed, I

Erik's Round 1

SPEAKER_03 14:30

rolled, I got first turn, and we had this really funny moment where you were like, Oh good. I really wanted you to get first turn.

SPEAKER_01 14:40

And then I was mistaken.

SPEAKER_03 14:42

I grinned evilly because I was like, me too.

SPEAKER_01 14:45

It was like that day that the Grinch's heart grew three sizes, and he makes that nice little grinchy smile. Yeah, you did that across the board on me there.

SPEAKER_03 14:56

Well, it's I mean, one, and I'm a nerd, so I track a lot of my games in tabletop battles, so I have access to all the stats. My win rate when I go first is like 20 percentage point higher, 20 percentage points higher than when I go second because I'm a very aggressive player.

SPEAKER_01 15:19

So the thinking in me wanting to go second, though, was because I know you want to get in my face, right? I know that's what your army wants to do, and I know you have a lot of movement, and so I'm thinking, okay, if I could get him started going in the directions that he wants to go, then that gives me a chance to be able to see uh maybe get a tell on like what you want it to do, and also I don't I have a few models that have a bunch of movement, um, the Hive Tyrant, the Norn, and um the Catan can move pretty good, but other than that, I really didn't have a ton of movement. Warriors don't move very far, and I've already established that they're not really gonna move much from my home objective. Um, and then the Voton, well, they got stubby legs. So, and I know that that's a weakness of the Votan, is oftentimes against a heavy pressure army, um, we can get out-exposed, and like you really don't want to do that. So, in my mind, I'm thinking, great, okay, cool. I can see where he's going to go, and I can see what I can do with that.

SPEAKER_03 16:37

So, that's that was my thinking into why I wanted to go second, but yeah, like I I think you hold it off because the other thing that I observed, and going second is really good in Purge the Foe, because one of the conditions for scoring primary is kill more. Yeah, like you have to kill more units than your opponent did. So it gives you perfect knowledge going into your turn of how many kills I'm at, and a reasonable assumption of what I might kill in your turn. So it allows you to start your turn going, okay, I think Eric is gonna be here, therefore I need to get to there. And one of the things that in hindsight I think you did really well in the game, in addition to maybe not always maximizing secondaries, but uh scoring something for secondaries every turn, is you you also kept you know you kept enough up on primary where you know you weren't often getting hold more, but you guaranteed every turn that you would get kill one and hold one, and then you became annoyingly good at killing just enough to deny me kill more.

SPEAKER_01 18:02

Yeah. That became kind of my objective for the rest of the game at one point. So but anyway, okay, so so you're deployed, you you get to go first, right? Um, so so you're you're a little chomping at the bit over there. So so what's going through your mind?

SPEAKER_03 18:21

So the way I deployed, and it's tough to do without a visual, and we weren't taking a ton of pictures. We we got some cool kind of cinematic moments, but we weren't doing the what I would normally do in my shop or you and your barn of like, let's go stand on a chair and try and take a picture like we're hovering over the board for a tops down view. We didn't do that because we didn't want to have an EHS episode inside the uh inside the game store.

SPEAKER_01 18:46

Well, let's be honest. We also started getting into it, and the owner of the store started getting into it, and we were just kind of distracted.

SPEAKER_03 18:55

Also, very fair. So, you know, rough about the way I deployed is I put Fulgrim and the Night Rampager both staged up behind terrain, behind line of sight blocking terrain in my deployment zone, so that they were out of sight of your terrain effects, which had the big, you know, rail gun rupture cannon. I deployed the three rhinos that I had, one with noise marines in it, on one flank of the board to go attack what I thought was your natural expansion objective. And the other two I staged up behind the big terrain feature that's in the center of the board so that I could get ready access to either the center objective or to what I considered my natural expansion objective. I had the cultists on my home objective, and then I deployed really aggressively with the tormentors, and I put them right on the center of objective with one of them standing on it, and the other ones kind of tucked back behind cover, and I was gambling a little bit that I would get first turn, so I could sticky two objectives, and then what I did turn one is and I forget what secondaries I drew, but I I drew pretty decent secondaries. So the first thing I did is I did what what I call or what I think has been called a rhino rush, where I advanced two of my rhinos. I started by stickying my home objective and the center objective with the cultists and the tormentors. I rushed and advanced two of my rhinos onto the two side objectives, but didn't get anyone out of it. And then I advanced the tormentors up to move block your Necron warriors so that you couldn't get out of your deployment zone with them.

unknown 20:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 20:46

And I just stood there in your face with them. I didn't actually do anything that turn.

SPEAKER_01 20:51

Yeah, you didn't. You you kind of like I kind of was like, oh, okay, so this is gonna work out in my favor. And honestly, at that point, I'm like, man, I'm glad I went second, right? Um what I didn't see, what you did do though, was you opened up lanes, which now hindsight 2020, right? You opened up lanes for your big stuff to move through unobstructed. So you could get your additional rhinos through, you could get fulgrum through without having to ever really worry about something getting in the way that's gonna hinder that or or um you know potentially bog it down, right? So you gave yourself like really good lanes of freedom of movement, and so something that I actually took away from turn one too was I'm sitting there going, wow, I was like, that's actually a really good way of playing something like a hecaton, right? Where you use your pressure and secondary touch. You know, units to be able to create those movement lanes. Oftentimes I think about cover first, right? And I think about ensuring that I have ways of blocking line of sight. And I don't necessarily worry about movement as much. Um, because I just anticipate you move with what you're given, right? But I watched the way that you did your movement on turn one, and I thought it was really cool. And um, I think because of the the way we were playing, and you had more access to certain models, it kind of opened up that kind of aspect, and I thought it was a pretty cool takeaway that I had from your turn one, which was really cool.

Steve's Round 1

SPEAKER_01 22:42

So on my turn one, I'm like, sweet, this rhino is like right here, ripe for the picking, and I can take this thing out, and um, you know, I can I can essentially maybe even injure everything inside of it.

SPEAKER_03 23:01

And I'm I think you drew bring it down as well. So the cards were telling you kill one of the rhinos.

SPEAKER_01 23:07

Yeah, kill the rhino. Like literally, I had Elmer Fudd in my head going, kill the rhino, kill the rhino. Um, so I did. I don't exactly remember what I did to kill the rhino.

SPEAKER_03 23:19

I think railgun shot into d6 and you ro and you rolled it.

SPEAKER_01 23:26

We railgunned the rhino to that.

SPEAKER_03 23:28

You did like 20-something damage to it.

SPEAKER_01 23:32

Yeah, it was brutal, right? So that thing not only did it blow up, but it blew up so fantastically that the shop owner was like hovering around, and then all of a sudden he was like, you know, kind of paying attention to what I just rolled, and I'm hooting and hollering and getting all excited and whatever. And Eric goes, um, hey, Mr. Shop Owner, do you wanna do you wanna roll our our uh you know our blow-up rolls? And man, was he excited to do that? So we had a guest roll for every time that something would do deadly demise, um, you know, he would come over and he would roll for us. So sure enough, bam, six right off the bat. So first rhino dead, first deadly demise happens, crap all around it's getting hit. Um, which it it didn't actually hit as many things as we wanted it to hit, but you know, whatever.

SPEAKER_03 24:26

I think it was well, it was a rhino, so it was only d3 mortal wounds. So it was just the guys who spilled out of it, which I think was bile and ten chosen, so like it killed a chosen.

SPEAKER_01 24:38

Yeah, yeah, bile. I have not yet really found a great answer for bile and ten chosen. Um that is just a tough, tough, tough, tough unit.

SPEAKER_03 24:52

It's my favorite unit. I understand why, because it is very, very good. See later in the game, but yeah, I get it.

SPEAKER_01 25:02

So, but I'm riding high, right? I I scored very high this round. Took out took out the rhino, which I don't think you thought was gonna go down as easily as it did. Um and I'm thinking, okay, really cool. And I staged myself up to um did we take the did I take the rhino out on the other side that turn too? Don't think so.

SPEAKER_03 25:29

Because no, um no, you didn't, because I think what ended up happening was oh yeah, you did, you killed it. So what happened was we conversion beamed it, didn't we? No, it yeah, you conversion beamed it, and then the Norn popped it with its melta, with its psychic melta. Yep, and then I did the really annoying thing of I disembarked on the backside of the transport, which made your charge like a 10-inch charge. You rolled it you rolled an eight and then fumed for a good 10 minutes, which meant I couldn't get the Norn in there.

SPEAKER_01 26:04

So, so I'm happy, right? I just blew up two rhinos, right? Right off the bat. I know everybody's gonna go, well, they're just rhinos, Steve. Don't get excited. Um, but I am excited because one, I scored on bring it down, but two, um, you know, uh I'm removing things from the board immediately, which is making me very happy because I'm thinking, okay, well, they're not in the rhino, which doesn't give them protection, which means that now I don't have two turns where they're getting however many, you know, um wounds uh of protection before I can actually start chipping away at them. So in my mind, I'm thinking, okay, turn one, this is great. I scored high. I'm chipping away at their defense, I'm opening this up so they have to come meet my gun lines uh firsthand. I'm I'm thinking I'm doing pretty good.

SPEAKER_03 26:57

So it one commentary on your turn, because I agree, is I we did miss one very important detail in it, which is your shooting phase was borderline perfect because the Tyran Effects popped one rhino and you sequenced it really well, which is something I noticed that you were focusing on. We kind of worked it into our pregame talk, and I noticed you focused on it of I'm gonna choose the order in which I do things very specifically. So you went Tyran Effects first, pop the rhino so that Bile and Company spill out, and then you shot the winged hive tyrant because he had a blast weapon that does three damage. Right. Yep, because you wanted to be able to shoot at Bile's squad when they were battle shocked, so they couldn't use a stratagem, and get potentially max blast shots off with the the winged hive tyrant, and then you moved on, you conversion beamered the other rhino, had hoped to pop that, had to use the Norn to finish it off. No harm, no foul. So shooting phase, exemplary charge phase, winged hive tyrant goes into the tormentors, which we kind of knew was gonna happen, right?

SPEAKER_01 28:14

Like that was kind of foreseen, right?

SPEAKER_03 28:16

Yeah, what good move in theory, foreboding words. You charged in and you positioned it such that the wing hive tyrant, should he kill the tormentors, which he should, could then consolidate onto the center objective, take it from me, and you've done your own version of the slingshot maneuver that you hate that I do to you all the time.

SPEAKER_01 28:38

It's definitely what I was trying to do, and and the whole point there was I I knew he could kill a few of them. I didn't I honestly didn't think he could kill all of them. Potentially he could. But I just didn't think that that, you know, statistically would happen. What we also did happen is none of those things. But go ahead, sorry.

SPEAKER_03 29:03

I was gonna say what we also didn't think happened was that he would only kill one of them because you would whiff pretty hard with your hit rolls, and then I would roll three out of four fives to save.

SPEAKER_01 29:17

Yeah, yeah, it was pretty, yeah, it was just an epic whiff. Like it so much build up to oh by the way, the other uh the other blew up rhino blew up, yeah. So we had so this is now a built-up turn one, right? Back-to-back rhino's deadly demise rolled by our guest, you know, celebrity roller. Like everybody now is riding the hive, right? Winged hive tyrant. Oh, this thing is scary. Crap. It didn't do crap. So it was just like this broke to the roller coaster and dropped, the whole floor fell out from under it. And then on the charge for um the Norn, right? I needed a 10 because someone did some slick maneuvers after the rhino died and put you know your guys just far enough away that I needed a 10 and I rolled an eight.

SPEAKER_03 30:19

Hey man, those noise marines are smart. They know when they need to evacuate the rhino and they see a big scary monster, you don't use the front door, you bail out the trunk.

SPEAKER_01 30:31

Yeah, well, you do know that those noise marines got what was coming to them later, right? Spoilers, come on. Alright, go ahead.

Erik's Round 2

SPEAKER_01 30:42

Sorry.

SPEAKER_03 30:42

Alright, so turn two. I think at this point we're tied.

SPEAKER_01 30:46

Yeah. And so we're no, I think you did really good on turn one. It was like 12 to 10, I think, or something like that.

SPEAKER_03 30:54

Yeah, wait. I think I maxed my secondaries, you maxed bring it down, and then you did like I forget what the other one was, but you got like a small engage on all fronts or something like that. So it I'm a couple points ahead of you. You are beating me on model count, and we're tied a CP. So it's a very close game at this point.

SPEAKER_01 31:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 31:15

So enter turn two. Again, I forget what I scored for cards, pass battleshock with Bile Squad, and because the Winged Hive Tyrant did not kill five tormentors, I score hold one, hold more for primary because I control more objectives than you. It was like three to one, and then one of them was open because your Norn couldn't charge onto it and was like annoyingly one inch off of it, and my noise marines were one inch off of it, hiding very bravely from the normal.

SPEAKER_01 31:50

Oh, super bravely, so bravely.

SPEAKER_03 31:53

So we we go to my turn. I forget what I drew for secondaries, but so we I took advantage of the Emperor's Children rules, fall back with the Tormentors, pass the Wing Hive Tyrant and into your deployment zone. I then advanced with the Noise Marines away from the Norn. Again, I'm being very brave because they had a winged hive tyrant that they had to go shoot.

SPEAKER_01 32:18

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 32:19

So leave my entire left flank wide open for your Norn and and your stubby little conversion beamer uh Thunderkin. My I left the night rampager still standing on that side of the board.

SPEAKER_02 32:36

He was scared.

SPEAKER_03 32:37

He didn't want to come out. He was bravely holding down the terrain piece in my deployment zone.

SPEAKER_01 32:43

Who's the most turtled I've ever seen a chaos army play?

SPEAKER_03 32:47

It he was very bravely and admirable, admirably screening out my deployment zone.

SPEAKER_01 32:55

So all right, from what a pair a set of bikes.

SPEAKER_03 32:59

Um he had some cultists who needed his him being consulting.

SPEAKER_01 33:05

So I do want to point out something, right? Can we can we make it so that fall back? You actually have to fall back, not fall forward. Like, I wish we could add like a thing to that that says fall back is you have to fall towards the direction of your deployment zone.

SPEAKER_03 33:25

Yeah, rather than just into open space and not go through any opponent models.

SPEAKER_01 33:31

Yeah, yeah, because it was just like, hey, I'm gonna fall back advance, kind of.

SPEAKER_03 33:38

I had piled into you the prior turn so that I had a couple models that had worked their way around your small for a big monster base, and I will use that to fall back towards you. Which to your point, those match. I'm gonna words matter you here. Fall back, sir. So tormentors fall forwards, Bile and the Chosen, advance towards your deployment zone, just leave their objective and start running at a breakneck pace towards your deployment zone where you had the terrain effects guarded by uh Bury and the champion with his Einhir Hearthguard.

unknown 34:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 34:28

I think I put Cypher kind of hiding in terrain near the center of objective, which I had stickied at this point, so that he could vector the center, advance the noise marines to go shoot the hive tyrant, and and I had pre-staged Fulgram the prior turn in like the one place on deployment zone on deployment one where you can hide something big. So I advanced him out, theme of the game, rolled a one on the advance, but it he moves a crazy amount. It didn't matter, yeah. It didn't matter because for me, he only moved 17 inches at this point. Come on. Yeah. So I I got him lined up on the terrain effects. And I think at this point you're looking at, you're like, oh, that's about a that's a lot of things about to charge me.

SPEAKER_01 35:23

Yeah, I actually I think at that moment I went, mm. I think I even said out loud, like, I'm not so crazy about how this looks and feels right now. You were like, well, let's just see it out. And I'm like, Yeah, I mean, we're here to play this, so this is this is gonna hurt.

SPEAKER_03 35:40

Yeah, and it's it did, so shooting phase, the noise marines rolled really hot and blew your hive tyrant off the board.

SPEAKER_01 35:50

Yeah, he was uh ejectocido cuzzed.

SPEAKER_03 35:54

And you chose not to use the stratagem because Cypher was there, so it would have cost you two CP to I didn't have the resources yet to to blow them up, so well you did, but you were wisely hoarding a couple of CP for Bury and for the champion.

SPEAKER_01 36:11

Yeah, I mean, uh yes, I want him to blow up. I was hoping maybe it would be later in the game where I could have resources, but I knew that, you know, for me to really use and deploy stratagems, I'm gonna have to do that with the Votan. So I'm not gonna do that right. You know, I'm not gonna waste that on the potential to do what, D3 mortal wounds or whatever.

SPEAKER_03 36:34

Yeah, it was a small explosion, it was D3. You were saving your CP for the bigger explosions.

SPEAKER_01 36:40

For sure, for sure.

SPEAKER_03 36:41

Yep. So that I think that's all that happened in my shooting phase, other than you made fun of Fulgrim for his ranged attack being a whip.

SPEAKER_01 36:50

I mean, the guy loves whips and jeans. Yep, so we I just love how the biggest things on the board, on both sides of the board, are the things that are hiding. Yeah. Like I was doing it too. I had a katan that I I quite frankly, if I look at it now, I probably screwed up a little bit, should have gotten him involved a little earlier. But I'm sitting here going, man, I don't want that thing moving out. I don't I don't want that thing exposed until I'm ready to expose it. And you did the same thing, so it was it really was in the beginning like a very mirrored kind of weird kind of sussing each other out, you know, two heavyweights kind of jabbing each other in the opening rounds type thing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 37:38

So we and we'll get back to the Catan because I have thoughts there, but we'll we'll save that for kind of the end of the game wrap-up and you know, something to think about as we're going through it. We should do the MVP of the game and the Magnus of the game for each of us.

SPEAKER_01 37:54

Uh for sure. I've been thinking about it since we played the game.

SPEAKER_03 37:57

So all right. So we get to the charge phase. I made all the charges that mattered, which were the tormentors and tier necron warriors who were standing on your your home objective, Bile, and his I think now at this point he's got like seven chosen, six chosen with him.

SPEAKER_01 38:17

I was chipping away at them, but yeah, yeah, you were doing a really good chipping away.

SPEAKER_03 38:22

Good job chipping away at them. But so he multi-charged into both Bury and the champion with his Ein here, and then Fulgram got in on the the Terran effects.

SPEAKER_01 38:34

Yeah, that was that was a point where I'm like, oh crap. I gave him a thing that I didn't really want him to get to.

SPEAKER_03 38:44

In hindsight, I feel like I should have fallen back or something there, but so I I think you're still good because and then the other thing I'd done during the movement phase is I took my last rhino, I disembarked the lord with the legionaries from it, put them on the center objective, and then I put the other rhino on my natural expansion objective, which was the one Bile had just abandoned.

SPEAKER_01 39:06

His lords came out a leapin'.

SPEAKER_03 39:09

Yeah, he did. So so I'm still holding three objectives at this point. I think we go through the fight phase. You used your CP, in my opinion, perfectly. You used it on the the Votan. Yeah. And I think the way you set it up was because you were sitting on like three or four CP. You said I'm gonna use it for void armor to reduce incoming AP on the Ein here.

SPEAKER_01 39:40

The IN here, yep.

SPEAKER_03 39:42

And then you said, and whichever one you don't attack first, I'm gonna interrupt with the other one.

SPEAKER_01 39:47

Correct. Yep.

SPEAKER_03 39:48

And so I I think as a result, I went into Bury first.

SPEAKER_01 39:53

Which I was probably the right way for you to do that, but yeah.

SPEAKER_03 39:58

Well, it I had to I had to split my attacks because my unit was so big it couldn't go to all of them. So I had Bile in the Chosen fight first, and it like I killed Bury, but then you rolled for his standback up, which happened end of phase.

SPEAKER_01 40:14

Yep, which meant they could fall back.

SPEAKER_03 40:17

I did the really annoying thing of like killing all but one of the hearthguard.

SPEAKER_01 40:26

Yes, which set things up perfectly, thank you. Yep. So you at this point you're like okay, I like salivating. I think this is the best thing ever, right? Beery dies, okay. Uh okay, so sad, right? Um, but when you stand him back up, he has to be out of you know any um melee range, right? So that's a good thing for me. I'm gonna get to charge back in with him next turn. Awesome, right? And you didn't kill all of the the um hearthguard.

SPEAKER_03 41:08

And you used the threat of the interrupt to force me to fight there first, which means now Bile has has used all his attacks, so you didn't even have to use the interrupt, you didn't. You saved those two CP and just watched as like Fulgrim did like eight damage to the Terran effects, which is because he the one attack that he rolled a six for damage on, you blanked it with the Terran effectses. I ignore you data sheet ability.

SPEAKER_01 41:38

You didn't roll very well on the other ones.

SPEAKER_03 41:40

Nope. And then the other one, it's like, oh no, your tormentors with their eight attacks throwing punches are gonna kill three of my Necron warriors that can reanimate six per turn. What am I gonna do here?

SPEAKER_01 41:55

So I'm feeling good at this point, right?

SPEAKER_03 41:58

I'm like, this is set up for me to be able to slap the crap out of Bile and his band of jerks, and you had the Darkstar axe on the champion, which is the perfect profile into a unit like that.

SPEAKER_01 42:16

And I'm like, this is this is easy, right? I I just I have a fall back, I have to just make this charge, right? It wasn't even that because you got to attack first. You got to oh you're right. I got to attack first, so I didn't even need to fall back. I'm thinking of um Beery charging in. So I got to make a charge with Beery, and I get to make this attack with the you know, with the champion. This is gonna hurt him. I go to hell.

SPEAKER_03 42:47

I have the picture of the my turn, my fight phase, your champion doing a crackback.

SPEAKER_01 42:54

I can't can't even look at it.

SPEAKER_03 42:56

Do you do you recall what the hit roll was?

SPEAKER_01 43:00

Yeah. It was bad. Um so he has six attacks. Yeah, it was like five, one, one, one, one, one.

SPEAKER_03 43:11

It was a six, a four, and four ones to him.

SPEAKER_01 43:15

Yeah. It was bad. And so what we did is we put the champion in the dice box and we put all of his die around him. We took the picture because he feels shame.

SPEAKER_03 43:25

And I think you rolled another one to wound, and we just didn't get a picture of it because you only killed one chosen with him. Well, and then you blocked them, remember?

SPEAKER_01 43:33

The the one yeah, so the ones that did go through, you blocked it. It was like one chosen died. It was like, well, that was a whole lot of nothing. It's like, okay, this sucks.

unknown 43:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 43:47

So then I I go ahead. So the champion is living his best life at this point in the game. He's making you proud. 100%.

SPEAKER_01 43:56

Yeah, he's doing what he does every time, which is sucks. Um so anyway, charge in with Beery, and I think Beery was able to take out I I think you were down to five chosen at that point.

SPEAKER_03 44:11

So it rewind a bit. So that's the end of my turn. I scored another four for kill one. And you're angry at the chosen, but you're like, I can still work with this. Eric bounced on his good.

SPEAKER_01 44:24

Everything that I needed to make that them pay. Everything that I wanted to like that I was really rooting for was there.

SPEAKER_03 44:35

So

Steve's Round 2

SPEAKER_03 44:36

we go to your turn. I forget what you drew for secondaries. Quick. It didn't even matter because I was just focused on this. Yep. So Void Dragon moves up to line up a charge into the Tormentors. Yep. The Norn moves up onto your natural expansion objective to line up an easy charge into my noise marines. Bury is back up and on unfailable charge distance away from Bile and the Chosen. And you again made the right decision. You insane braveried with the champion, so you weren't going to risk a battle shock. And then you used, I forget the name of the stratagem, the one that allows you to fall back, shoot, and charge with his unit. So you backed them up an inch, set up an unfailable charge, and now they're ready, along with Bury, to go charging back into Bile in his squad.

SPEAKER_01 45:30

So before that, the reason why I moved the Void Dragon there was because the secondaries that I chose, I needed to be able to have more model in the midfield, right? Um, which if you think about it, right? So I'm gonna wipe out the guys that you just had attack the warriors. I'm gonna move, or he is staying in the midfield wholly. I had all six of my uh we call them thunder dumpers. Um all my thunder dumpers inside of the the the midfield. I had my one hearth guard, and the champion is soon going to be, and Beery is soon going to be, and we're going to about you know my goal was to take out the chosen at that point. And if I could just get it down to you are just left with Bill, this this is great. Like, one, I'm I'm scoring across the board, I'm killing units, I'm holding things down, I'm taking you off of objectives. Life is potentially okay right now. Key word in there, potentially, potentially.

SPEAKER_03 46:42

So we get to the point where the champion has to do the one thing so before that shooting phase, yeah, you you did have a bit of a decision point that we talked through, and we actually called the store owner over to get his opinion on it, which was does the Terrain effects try and kill Fulgram, who has a four-up involved in his engagement range of him, or does he go after the rhino, which is sitting on an objective?

SPEAKER_01 47:12

Which was also in the center of the board, too, which we needed to remove.

SPEAKER_03 47:17

And which would guarantee you, assuming it dies, a kill one for the turn. So you you shoot the terrain effects at the rhino. I think the rhino also exploded.

SPEAKER_01 47:28

It did.

SPEAKER_03 47:29

So the rhino explodes. There was nothing inside it, so now I don't have anything on that objective. You have kill one on the board, and I think we are tied at this point for the number of units that are in the midfield. Or like correct. No, I I still have an advantage of one of them, but you have a path to get, you know, if if you do all the things in the fight phase that should happen mathematically, you are gonna get display of might.

SPEAKER_01 48:02

And this, folks, is why list hammer and math hammer only takes you so far.

SPEAKER_03 48:11

Well, because let's go over the things that did happen according to list and math hammer. The Norn made his charge into the Noise Marines.

SPEAKER_01 48:18

Yes, he did good.

SPEAKER_03 48:19

The Void Dragon made his charge into the Tormentors. He he he showed up, yes. Bjury made his charge into Bile and the Chosen. The champion and the Hearth, the lone remaining Hearth Guard made their charge, and then you got to roll your dice for his special ability.

SPEAKER_01 48:41

Okay, hold on. I I don't qualify that as that I wouldn't call that list hammer aspect, I would call that math hammer. Fair math hammer the the the the math was there for them to make their charges. There was no charge that was so ridiculous that it was gonna be really hard. Like I didn't have to roll boxcars for anything or anything like that. So the math hammer, I'll give you that. It it it was fair, but if you're living on math hammer, you're living on a prayer, and I will tell you why, because there's one unit that just you know there what is the saying? Like when when you tell God your plans, or how do you make God laugh, tell him your plans or whatever? That I don't know the saying, but I think it's something close to that, right? I'm gonna change it, right? Mine's gonna be when you tell the champion that he has one job, which is to charge into things, lower his shoulder, and ram the hell out of them, um, and do your devastating wound trick, um, he laughs at you. Because you know what? Yeah, in all of 10th edition, I have not gotten that freaking unit to be able to do what it is supposed to do. And I'm calling him a unit because the hearth guard, bless them, bless their little souls. They go out there every time, and they're supposed to be inspired by their champion to do greatness, and they go out there and they give it everything, and then a champion shows up and lays a lame duck egg every time, every stinking time in 10th edition, this stupid model, which I maybe I am gonna strap it to firework. I think that might actually happen. Fourth of July is coming. Um Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 50:31

So to be clear on what we are talking about here, and I am pulling up the Einheir Champions data sheet. We are talking about the ability Mass Driver Accelerators, which says that each time this model ends a charge move, you can select one enemy unit within engagement range, which would be Bile and the Chosen, and roll one D6. On a two to five, that enemy unit suffers d3 mortal wounds. On a six, that enemy unit suffers d3 plus three mortal wounds. And just so that we're all clear, Steve, what did you roll? One and then when we laughed out of the ridiculousness about it, called the store owner, told him that you have rolled a one on that ability literally every time you've tried to use it in 10th edition, and he encouraged you to try it again. What did you roll the second time? One. What about the third time?

SPEAKER_01 51:32

A one. I yeah, yeah. This is a PG13 podcast, and I promised myself I wouldn't curse on this ever. But I'm telling you, folks, it's got me pretty close to cursing because that stupid thing. You just have to roll a two! If you rolled a two, I'd be proud of him. I I'd take him out for ice cream after the game. Like, just roll a two, man. That's it. We're not asking for statistically too much here. But my man has rolled a one the five times in 10th edition that I have set that up to work in my favor. Now, it has worked, but it's always worked on something like a Zanger or a Gretchen or some insignificant thing that I'm playing, right? Never when I need it has that worked in 10th edition.

SPEAKER_03 52:38

So, you want to know what I realized after the game, and this is gonna be Salt in the Wounds. Give it to me. There is one game that we played very early on in the edition where I played your Votan and you played Salamanders. Yeah, I know. And do you remember how that game ended?

SPEAKER_01 52:58

No.

SPEAKER_03 53:01

With the champion rolling a charge into a land raider on the center objective, and I rolled a six into another six. That's right. Kill a land raider with his ability and win the game. That is, thanks to bring it down and getting control of that objective.

SPEAKER_01 53:19

I realize it's me. Like, I realize that I too probably need to be putting time out, and I'll be honest with you, I I'm I'm oh man. I'm just gonna have to find something else to do.

SPEAKER_03 53:33

We both looked at it after it happened and said that's the turning point of the game.

SPEAKER_01 53:38

It it really was because I had things set up, and we're on turn two, folks. Like, this is my turn, second part of turn two. Like, I had it set up where I do I think I'm gonna win this game. I don't, and and we can get into that here in a second. But I had it set up where I think I'm gonna put a hurt on you.

SPEAKER_03 54:00

Well, you did put a hurt on me, so if we fast forward a little bit, like the Norn cleared out all of the noise marines and consolidated back onto the objective. The void dragon cleared out all of the tormentors. The Tyrannifex did die to to Fulgram, but then you but then you used your I blow up automatically, and he did a ton of damage to the chosen because I think you rolled a six for the the damage roll, yeah, and the chosen were standing right next to him. Bury then precisioned out Bile, who granted stood back up again at the end of the phase.

SPEAKER_01 54:39

Yeah, but I still get the points for it, so like, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 54:42

And the champ and the hearth guard did a reasonable amount of damage. I think they killed another three or so chosen. So at the end of the phase, you know, I'm you did a decent hurting to me. The problem is I still had like four chosen up, and then Bile was gonna stand back up, and you really wanted it to be something more like one to two chosen with Bile standing back up.

SPEAKER_01 55:09

Right. And then I could, you know, I just would have scored the max that I could potentially score based on my secondary pulls there, and I I would have felt confident, and I think that that with everything that would have happened and the secondary aspects, I I think that you know the next sequence of actions might not have taken place the same way, and and so I do feel like the champion who he brought to redeem himself from doing this in past games. Um well, you know what? He he is a man of consistency. I'll give him that.

SPEAKER_03 55:51

He uh he is apparently dwarves are not really dangerous over short distances. Not that dwarf. Yeah, so it it and and you know that those are kind of the Be slapped. Beery absolutely slapped his job. Beery

Erik's Round 3

SPEAKER_03 56:11

did his job. Like if we fast forward to turn three, so Terran effects is down. I've got most of the board control at this point, but you had definitely bloodied my nose. So I bring the the night rampager out to play and set up basically an unfailable charge into your Norn. I had Fulgrim advance towards the void dragon, I had the prime test subject lord advance towards the void dragon, I fell back the chosen because they passed Battleshock, and then put them in a position where I could shoot and charge. I was gonna shoot into the champ in the Ein here and then charge Bury because their data sheet ability lets me fall back, shoot, and charge. And then I put Cypher on the center objective, and he has lone ops, which means you couldn't really do anything. And I had rapid ingress in my warp talons in your turn, and so they set up a like a one-inch charge into your thunder dumpers. Yeah. And basically at this point, what happened is we know we get to the end of my shooting phase. I think it's just the champ who's up because like I'd shot the last of the I had the bikes over there, remember?

SPEAKER_01 57:29

What was that? I had bikes over there too. Yep, you had bikes over there.

SPEAKER_03 57:34

Yep, you had pioneers over there. So I think the way it was set up going into my charge phase is Fulgram charged into the Void Dragon, the Lord and his legionnaires into the void dragon, the rampager into the Norn, and then Bile and his chosen multi-charged the bikes, Beery and the champion, but the lone hearthguard had fallen during shooting.

SPEAKER_01 57:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 57:58

And then basically what happened is I chose to fight first with Bile and Company. They killed Bjury and the champ, and then the bikes were just stuck there with them. The rampager like did a straight up Street Fighter 2 tiger uppercut the Norn off the board. And interestingly, Fulgram bounced. Like just your Void Dragon laughed at him because you made like three out of five involunt saves, and then at least half of your feel no pains. And then Void Dragon did like I think half of Fulgram's wounds damage back to him. So the you know, end of the third turn, and then the the Thunder Dumpers died to the warp talents.

SPEAKER_01 58:51

Yeah, yeah. Actually, the warp talons in that case, they they they actually hit really hard. Like they really did a good job. Like they took out six Thunderkin, which is not as hard as it used to be, thanks, GW. But um it, you know, still that's that's what are they two wounds each?

SPEAKER_03 59:12

So I'd also gotten really lucky with my creations of bile detachment rolls, because I think I had gotten plus one to weapon strength, to weapon skill, which means everything that was infantry and CSM was hitting on twos, and I'd gotten plus one to strength of melee weapons. So that pushed me when I was going into the the Thunderkin of everything was wounding on fours, and the warp talons have twin-length, so it was wounding on fours re-rolling. For sure. For sure.

Speedrunning the Rounds 4 and 5

SPEAKER_03 59:44

And at this point, we just started speed running it a little bit because it you know, I had a rampager who was unopposed standing on one objective, I had Cypher unopposed standing on another one, I had most of the board control, but then it became abundantly clear Fulgrim was gonna die to the void dragon, and I had I had no solution to the Necron Warriors. And so we just, you know, we kind of speed ran the last half of the game and tallied up, you know, okay, what do we think happens? Rolled out the critical things, and the the big, big moment was Void Dragon just straight up uppercutted Fulgram off the board and collected that bounty.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:27

Yep. Which was good because we fulgram gave a chance to redeem cousin Josh there a little bit.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:38

And then actually, I think that was turn either bottom of three or top of four. So then in turn four, you were able to move the void dragon out, charge cipher, and the void dragon ended the game standing unopposed on the center objective.

unknown 1:00:55

Right.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:57

So I don't know, it it was a cool game. To me, the turning point was definitely the the fact that the eChamp couldn't handle Bile and the Chosen Squad, and basically him failing plus some bad roles led to a cascade of events where Bury, the eChamp, the eChamp squad, and a set of bikes that you really wanted to have doing secondaries and threatening my backfield all got bottlenecked in your deployment zone.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:29

Yeah, I definitely got stuck in my deployment zone. But I I think so so there is something about this, right? And we talked about it in the store. Um there's aspects of what we played in this game that are gonna be very very at least based off of the play test games that we've seen for 11th. Um there's some thematic stuff that happened that I think we're gonna see a lot of the way that 11th is setting up the play. And one of those things is, you know, I got in a hole pretty quickly. Um, and it took me a turn to dig out of it. And and um you and the shop owner were very much like, hey, I really think you need to stick in this and just kind of like try to, you know, stick with your strategy here and see how it goes. And what it wound up doing is like at first it really hit hard, and there was like this kind of like real scary, like almost felt like a vacuum in the moment of like just the power swayed one way, but uh you're you if you can take the first hit and keep moving through, um, I think that that's kind of gonna be a theme that we're gonna see a lot of. Um and finding ways to persevere when you take that first hit, I think is gonna be something that's gonna definitely stick out more and more and more. It just feels that like that's the way that things go. Like the first hit's gonna be hard if you can survive it. Now you have a chance to dig out of it, and it's almost like gearing you towards that.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:11

Yeah, it and I think we one of the observations we have, and we're operating off of incomplete knowledge, is it felt based off of the way the two lists were built. Like if I had to guess the force dispositions, and granted, we're playing a a Frankenstein list from multiple factions, but my list felt very purge the foe in its force disposition, and yours felt very taken hold. Which one of the things when we you know kind of back checked what we've seen so far for 11th reveals is there would have been a pretty decent end of the game scoring for the fact that you got the void dragon on the center objective unopposed.

unknown 1:03:56

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:57

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:58

Which would have rewarded you more in 11th edition than it did in in the current game that we played. Because you did dig out of the hole with the void dragon, and at the end of the game, you controlled your objective, the the center objective, and I think you had killed me off of my natural expansion objective, so we both controlled two, and you had killed most of my units. I think Bile, it was just no bile was down again. There was like one chosen left, Cypher was down, it was just the warp talons, the rampager and my cultists who were up. And I think on your side it was the void dragon, and then you had a the huge brick of warriors with the reanimator next to them that were still up.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:50

Yeah.

Heroes and Zeros

SPEAKER_01 1:04:51

So do you want to do who was our you know hero and zero type thing?

SPEAKER_03 1:04:57

Yeah, but I'd like to do it with a twist, which is I would like you to pick the ones from my army, and I would like to pick the ones for your army.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:06

So I'll go first for your army. Um, so I think your hero was probably bile. I think I think that unit and the chosen, I guess, too, if you could call them as one. I think that unit's just a force and is really hard to deal with. And I personally my style of play, I haven't quite figured out how to how to handle them. I think I did okay um with this, and it was a really good test for me to see like what I would throw at them. I I probably would like to see what would happen if I threw some slapjacks at them. Um see what that would look like. Um but I think that was your hero. And I'm gonna go with that your zero. Or your Magnus, the one who did all the things wrong. I don't know that they did it did all the things wrong. But I think Fulgram kind of it stormed in and was like this big presence and like was really kind of scary to be on the other side of the board from. But then when it came down to it, it didn't do more work to the army than like Bio did and his group.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:33

No, he didn't. He and this one hurts me because Fulgram's one of my favorite models, but it He didn't even come close to trading for anything that approximated the amount of points that I sank into him. Like I basically just used him as a really fast and scary distraction carn effects, and the only thing he killed was the Tyrannifex. Yeah. And and he killed the Tyrannifex. Granted, I was pretty scared about the Tyrannifex getting into lining up a shot on the Night Rampager, and I was very scared about the Void Dragon getting in on the Night Rampager. So Fulgram kind of did his job in that I traded him for the to kill the Tyrannifex and distract the Void Dragon. But the Terran effects already did its job at that point because it had killed two rhinos and uh uh you know done reasonable damage to the chosen. And it ended up not really mattering with with the void dragon because the void dragon just laughed at Fulgram and then killed back.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:46

And for for the aspect of like you were using him to kind of protect the knight rampager, but if you look at it, that what what what really did the knight rampager do?

SPEAKER_03 1:07:56

He uppercutted the Norn and then he sat on an objective for three turns.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:00

Yeah. Which and the Norn ate some noise marine shenanigan before that, right?

SPEAKER_03 1:08:07

I was gonna say I actually uh so can I do yours now?

SPEAKER_01 1:08:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:11

So I'm gonna cheat a little bit. I've got one Magnus and two MVPs. Okay. Actually, I've got two of each.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:20

I wonder if they match mine, but go ahead.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:22

Yeah, I've got two of each. So, and we'll alternate back and forth. I'll go. So the obvious Magnus is the E champ.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:29

Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:31

He had one job, and he got multi, and you gave him multiple chances, and he whiffed at every opportunity he had to do anything cool.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:44

Yeah. Yep, I agree. Definitely the Magnus. But there's another Magnus.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:50

Yeah, on paper, per list and math hammer, he should have been your answer to Bile. And you made all the right decisions to make him your answer to Bile with your stratagem usage and how you positioned him, and then falling back the next turn. And he still whiffed. So he's he's the first Magnus. I'll do the two MVPs and then I'll get to the last Magnus. The two MVPs, I think the number one is the void dragon.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:24

Yeah, I agree with that.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:27

Because he he did his job and then some.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:30

As a matter of fact, I even handicapped him and then he still did his job.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:34

Well, he he killed the tormentors who I actually think you played the first turn well because you staged him up. He was you were able to use him to rescue the warriors on your home objective and alleviate. I don't think they were any in any danger of dying, but alleviate an OC threat that I could have done, where I could have just tried to position more objective control on that objective than you had. And then he killed Fulgram, got on the center objective, killed Cypher. I think along the way he scored assassination, and then he scored multiple rounds of kill one and hold one for you. So he he, I think, scored the most amount of points and also killed the most amount of points of units. He was easily your MVP. The second one, I think, is the Norn.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:26

I I agree with that, actually. I he was gonna be my first one. Because I you got your points out of the Norn. It's a he, I don't know if it's a he.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:35

I think it's supposed to be a she. I don't know, but it's you got your points worth out of the Norn. It killed a rhino, it killed all the noise marines inside, it cleared an entire flank, and you forced me to commit my knight to that flank, and then the knight sat there doing jack squat the rest of the game.

unknown 1:10:51

Right.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:53

That's an effective usage of a 230, 260 point unit that you know you killed its points worth of stuff and then forced me to overcommit in response. So I those are would be my MVPs for you. The other Magnus and this one's gonna hurt cousin Josh is the warrior brick. Yeah. Not because it's not good, I just don't think it fit in the list.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:22

I I think that it just kept coming up as like, what do I do with this? Like what what like I didn't have an answer, it didn't fill a gap or a need in the game that really helped or hindered, right? There were there just wasn't uh like what do I do with this thing? I kept saying that over and over and over again, and to be honest with you, it did nothing. If you go back through this entirely very long episode, um you'll hear that we don't even mention it throughout the entire game, except for the fact that Eric charged it one time.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:01

It got move blocked by an 80-point unit on my side, and then it sat on your home objective, twiddling its thumbs the rest of the game, occupying close to 500 points of your army list.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:14

Right. So it actually forced me to feel like I was playing at a deficit. And at one point during us, I think turn two, I said, wow, it really feels like I don't have as much on the board, and it like as much to do anything with. And I don't know, maybe others will come we'll we'll listen to the episode and come up with 10,000 ways that we that or I sorry should have used the warriors, and and we even went over some of that, like you know, the shop owner was like adamant about yeah, I would have moved them up, I would have pushed them to the center, and I don't know if that would have really even changed anything. Uh might have gotten you an extra five points, but it's not swinging the game. No, and and and the staying power of the warriors really requires that whole buffing aspect, which um you know we only had limited amount of because you you couldn't really bring everything along with them. So, you know, I I think that we brought them because we love you, cousin Josh, and we brought them because they're they're your favorite part of 10th edition, and and we're happy to play them. But if we had to do it again, I I think that um, you know, bringing something that would have been more to attuned to like um you know, a ghost arc or uh no a doomsday arc. A doomsday arc, sorry, and like um the Gloctopus, um I think that that would have been something that would have been a little bit more effective. I I could have had a little bit more versatility there. That the Warriors, they just they're not uh if you don't have the shooting lanes for them to get crack off 20 shots, right, and hope that their what are they, gals rifles or whatever, yeah, do something, right? Or can take out an 80-point, you know, unit, that would be great, but it just didn't you didn't give them that opportunity, so they really just sat there and didn't really do anything.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:29

Yeah, in hindsight, I think there were three pivotal events of the game that worked against you. Two of them were well, you could argue three of them were dice induced. And to your point earlier, I don't know that it changes who won, but I think it definitely changes how close the game was, which is so first one was me getting first turn. Yeah, I think was a pivotal moment. Not because it was game-ending, but just it it allowed me to play really aggressively like I wanted to. I think the second pivotal moment was the hive tyrant whiffing. Yeah, because if the hive tyrant had killed the tormentors, then you could have advanced the warriors to get them on the center objective, and you could have started tar pitting the center. Potentially, yeah, you're right. And that would have split the board straight down the middle and made me play just on the edges. That would have given me a secondary advantage, too. Yep. So I think that was, and then the last deciding moment, like we called out, was the E champ with just his cascading unfortunate dice situations.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:47

Yeah, I mean, so in the end, I I forget what the actual points total were, but I mean, you you won the game very handedly, which is was great. I mean, you played really, really well, but I squeaked, I think, like 50 some points out of it.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:03

I think the final tally was something like you got you ended up right on 60 points or something like that.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:10

Yeah, and and and to be honest with you, I'm pretty proud of that, given kind of some of the stuff that I had to dig out of, and and you know, yeah, I lost, but I really was proud of the way that I played, and I I it was a lot of fun, and on something that is just completely, you know, not built together, you know. Uh it was it it really forced you to do things like focus on executing, you know, the order of operations for things and and how you're gonna do something, and um ensuring that you know you're really thinking through your stratagem usage because you can only use them for certain for certain aspects of your army um and how you're going to pull that as an advantage. I don't know. I actually think this was a really cool way to play the game. Uh I agree.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:10

And I'm uh it was fun. I'm not sure if you heard this because we were packing up at the point, and I think your wife came in to to let you know that she was gonna be next door having a glass of wine. And but they get done playing with our war dollies. Yep, but the the store owner kind of walked over as we were wrapping up and talking it through, and he's like, Hey man, you didn't get tabled and you scored points in every turn. That's better than most of the people who play here. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:38

I don't know, it was cool. It it it was cool. Um, so yeah. I'm interested if other people out there tried to mimic what we're doing or you know, give us some feedback. We're always looking for that, but it was a lot of fun. I I think it was a really cool way to kind of send off 10th, and you know, now we're kind of getting ramped up and ready to start looking at 11th.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:03

Yep, and excited to see as they release more and more rules and previews and everything else there.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:10

Can't wait for our pre-orders to come in.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:13

Yeah, I I've got my child labor sweatshot sweatshop ready to assemble everything for me.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:20

Maybe Uncle Steve can persuade them for you know monetary reasons to help. Oh, they 100% will. So that's awesome. Well, thank you, Eric, for putting all the work in to get the game set up and and thank you everyone for listening and following us along on our little two episode uh montage here. But yeah, it was it was really cool, and I think my big wrap-up was you know, um you can just have there's so much diversity with what you can do with this game and just have fun with it. Keep having fun, get ready, get psyched for 11th. Uh, we're with you, and you know, let's uh let's see what this new edition has.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:07

Yeah, well, and we had another aha that came out of the game that I'll and use as a cliffhanger, which is looking at the MVPs of the game, you you may have spotted a trend on the types of models that you tend to enjoy playing the most and play the most skillfully, and that's leading you to flirt with potentially a new army. So that's a that's a journey into 11th that we can explore a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:35

Absolutely. So, a couple new things coming for 11th. We're we're broadening our horizons. There you go. All right, everybody. Thanks for sticking with us on this one. We really had fun. And we'll see you next week. Take care, everyone.