Litanies of the Faithful

On the 8-9th of June I attended Terracon, a 6-round Warhammer 40k GT hosted at the Naracoorte Showgrounds in Naracoorte South Australia, I set out to gambit in all of my games but quit after the second round because gambits are bad, who knew?

Terracon was celebrating its 25th birthday this year and was actually the first Warhammer event I ever attended in 2023. My first impression of Terracon last year was that it was very competitive (this was due to it being the first event I attended), however this couldn’t be further from the truth. The vibes at Terracon are fantastic, everyone is super chill, and it genuinely is less sweaty than a regular competitive Warhammer 40k GT. I got to play against an Astraeus, a Stompa, an all Nurgle Daemon list, and an all monster Tyranid list, very cool lists you wouldn’t normally see at a GT.

With Pariah Nexus looming this would be the last event of the Leviathan mission pack. I’ve really enjoyed Leviathan so far and after reading the previews and reviews of Pariah Nexus I only think the game is going to get better (especially after the sister’s codex releases).

Still struggling with whether or not I’m a sweaty loser or a cool chill casual gamer my list is a mixed bag of units I enjoy, units I think are genuinely good and models I bring purely for the meme (my booty Culexus assassin). I set out to gambit every game, but after showing up for the first day and seeing best in faction plaques, and then seeing that the other sisters’ players weren’t big sweaty losers like me, I knew I could win one if I tried. This led to me quitting attempting gambits after the second game in an attempt to win my prize, and in doing so the rights to brag to my friends (and people on reddit), that I’m a ‘best in faction’ winning player for eternity.

I included a poem about gambits in my list, if you’re interested in reading it here it is: (If not, feel free to skip it, my list is directly below it).

What is a gambit?

What is to gambit?

If one is to gambit, can one if to gambit?

Is a gambit an if, or is it something resolute, or nothing at all?

If resolute, can a gambit be an if, if one is to gambit?

To be something, must it be done, or can a gambit exist to be something while still being undone.

If not, the absence of a gambit is nothing, to gambit is something.

Something must be done to gambit, if one is to gambit, resolutely.

While undone, a gambit exists in its absence as nothing, to be something when done.

If a gambit is successfully done, its impactful as something.

If not done but still exists, was its existence successful, or it becomes itself wanting.

Unsound, a gambits nature is to prove the opposite.

When sound does a gambit become strategy, tactical prowess, cunning, gimmick, or nothing.

What is a gambit?

Done by somebody intended to impart an advantage.

What is an advantage?

Function defines advantage as a situation suggests.

Situations vary, becoming unbecome if nothing, or something, a gambit is.

Initiating if, if a gambit is if, is it a gambit?

Breakdown be done if a gambit can extend what is initiated to its end.

End, where a gambit becomes undone or done, by its own existence, mediating what is being done.

Scaffolding self, gambits prompt regulation when done, must they?

Through use, one regulates context predicted semantic framework for action, coherency benefits.

Choice, if nothing left but to gambit.

‘The gambit gambit’ – By Ryan Jones

• Canoness – Mantle of Ophelia
• Saint Celestine
• Palatine – Blade of Saint Ellynor
• Daemonifuge
• Battle sister squad
• Dominion squad
• Immolator – Flamers
• Immolator – Melta
• 2x Rhino
• 2×10 Repentia
• Exorcist
• 2x Castigator – Battle cannon
• 2×5 Seraphim – Hand flamers
• 5x Zephyrim
• Culexus Assassin
• Vindicare Assassin

Was this list built around gambits? No. I don’t think it’s possible to build a list well enough around gambits for it to actually make a difference. You could potentially increase the odds of you achieving a gambit by a few % if you’re lucky, but you’d likely reduce your chances even more but including bad units in your list to begin with. You still need to score all your secondaries, and primary until the end of battle round 3.

My Sister’s list was fairly well rounded. Celestine ran around solo, the Daemonifuge wreaked havoc as usual, the palatine with her big sword went with some dominions in an Immolator, and the canoness joined half a BSS squad in an Immolator.

The Immolator is far and away becoming my favourite unit in this book, it move, it transport, it shoot, it does it all really.

Repentia, because Repentia. An Exorcist because big piano lady. Assassins for meme potential and Zephyrim/Seraphim for secondaries and putting my opponents in Seraphim JAIL.

Castigators, purely for the battle shock potential (I battle shocked a Custodes player 7 times in one game, it was ridiculous). Onto the games!

Round 1 – Tim’s all Nurgle Chaos Daemos (L, 51-55) – Hammer & Anvil, Chilling rain, Sites of Power

Tim’s list: Great Unclean One – Endless Gift, Great Unclean one, Rotigus, 2×3 Nurglings, Beast of Nurgle, 2×3 Plague Drones, 2x Soul Grinder (Nurgle), 3x War Dog Brigand

This was a good mission to start the weekend off on, not too many shenanigans and I think sites of power works pretty well with my list having 3 lone operative characters, and characters that I can resurrect at the end of a phase.

Tim deployed his thicc boys closer to the centre flanked by Soul Grinders and Wardogs. I deployed as hidden as I could be, I don’t think any of Tim’s shooting can actually crack my boxes but I don’t want to risk a soul grinder getting lucky. My plan was to hold the top objective with the daemonifuge and try to hold Tim back a little bit if I happened to go first, which I did.

I pushed forward, staging Repentia and dominions. I had a quiet first turn scoring deploy teleport homer with a rhino. On Tim’s first turn he took down the rhino to score Bring it down for 4 points but could not score overwhelming force as he deployed a bit too far back and couldn’t get in range to shoot the Daemonifuge.

Nothing that exiting happened this game, I killed all the Brigands with shooting and Daemonifuge Shenanigans, Celestine deepstriked in the backline and stopped Tim scoring his home point, but other than a lone Great Unclean one Tim was all but tabled at the end of the game.

At the end of battle round 3 I attempted to gambit, I chose Orbital Strike Coordinates, and failed it by rolling a 3, even with a +2 from having units in each corner! What are the odds of that! This would be the beginning of the eventual downfall of me attempting to gambit, they truly are rubbish.

Ultimately the game ended 51-55 Tim’s way, I did leave a GUO on 2 wounds in the middle after my turn 5, while having BID so it could have been a win for me, but that’s the dice. Had I not attempted a gambit I would have won anyway, but where is the fun in that? (I should not have tried to gambit, they are not fun).

Round 2 – Liam’s Shield Host Custodes (W, 75-23) – Hammer and Anvil, The Ritual, Secret Intel

Liam’s List: Blade Champion – Auric Mantle, Blade Champion, Shield-Captain – Castellan’s Mark, 2×5 Custodian guard, 2x Caladius Grav-tank, 5x Allarus Custodians, 5x Custodian Wardens, 4x Prosecutors, Callidus Assassin

Unfortunately, I forgot to take a photo of the deployment this game. I deployed in coward formation to hide from the tanks and Liam deployed in staging formation with his beefy boys hiding behind the obscuring ruins, I should note that all first-floor ruins were considered LOS blocking for this event.

This mission was great for me, Sisters have so much trash to create objectives for the ritual and secret intel means I’m definitely scoring 40 points for secondaries. Also, I’m going first, which IMO is good on the ritual.

I drew tempting target, and assassination, easy enough considering the only tempting target is the middle objective which I stood on with my lone op bros. I created an objective and passed to Liam.

Liam didn’t have much to do on his turn, I hid all my tanks as they had nothing to shoot at and pre-measured all of his charges so at best, he would be able to fight a rhino full of Repentia but it would leave the unit so exposed that it would be dead, and if Liam moved forward too far he would be exposed to shooting, or to a counter charge. He durdled up the board and used his Callidus to create an objective in the centre.

On my turn I again, pre-measured all his movement to cuck as much of his gameplan as I could, I also scored 10 for primary woo!

I got a few pot shots off with cassie’s and the exorcist but still didn’t commit to any engagements. I created another objective towards the board edge from the first one I created, scored 5 for cleanse and 5 for extend battlelines.

I dropped a bunch of Seraphim alongside 5 dominions I had in reserve to flame the heck out of the Callidus and put him in Seraphim jail, severely restricting the movement of his beefy boys for another turn.

In Liam’s turn 2 he drew storm hostile and defend, scoring neither of them and keeping them both. He cleared my screens but still wasn’t able to engage me as I pushed him back in my first turn, scared of the counter charge, then moved backwards in my second turn putting him in the same position, but also move-blocking him. Things were not looking good for Liam as he only scored 5 on the primary due to a deep strike of Allarus Custodians on the point he created in the previous turn.

On turn 3 everything went to heck, I got my Repentia out of the boxes to prepare for charges, I deepstriked Celestine and Zephyrim attempting to score capture enemy outpost and storm hostile with a single charge onto his home objective, defended by a single tank, and pushed my dominions and big axe palatine along with the Repentia to do some killing.

Liam had a lot of CP so it’s likely one of these flanks would get interrupted in combat and fail miserably, but luckily for me I shot my Castigators at each unit of Custodian guard, and he failed both his battleshock tests, meaning no Strategems at all, huh.

I charged his bros and cleared two squads of guard with blade champions and from here it all went to heck, especially after a single castigator picked up 4 Allarus Custodians in a shooting phase, what?

The game ended with Liam on 23 points and myself on 75 points after failing a gambit again.

This was shit, gambits are bad, I quit.

Round 3 – Darcy’s Invasion Fleet Tyranids (W, 99-34) – Dawn of War, Purge the Foe, Delayed Reserves

Darcy’s List: Old One Eye, Biovore, 6x Ravener, 2x Carnifexes, 2x Exocrine, 2x Maleceptor, 3x Screamer-killer, 2x Trygon

Dawn of War? Classic! Purge the Foe? Love it, especially when my Tyranid opponent is going first.

I rolled up to the table and Darcy informed me of his plan to deploy teleport homers and behind enemy lines with his Biovore every turn. I informed Darcy of my plan to kill his Biovore with my Exorcist on turn 1 because in Dawn of War deployment I can shoot it wherever it is by just deploying my exorcist last in range of it.

Darcy was not chuffed about this revelation, and spent 10 minutes deliberating assassination before I pointed at a rhino and told him all my characters would live in the party bus and never come out if he chose that, eventually he decided on tactical.

Tyranids are in a rough as state atm, I tabled Darcy by the end of turn 3 except for a few sad beasties. The game ended up being 99-34 my way, and I did not gambit! It felt fantastic! Why did I decided to play meme Warhammer for the last two events, what an idiot. I’M BACK BABY (This was definitely not influenced by the best in faction plaques they had at this event, and the fact the other sisters players were hot potatoes).

His list was very cool though, just wish it worked betterer.

Round 4 – Hassan’s Shield Host Custodes (L, 76-83) – Deploy Servo Skulls, Scrambler fields

Hassan’s List: 2x Blade Champion, Trajann Valoris, 2×5 Custodian Guard, 2xt Custodian Wardens, 2x Telemon Heavy Dreadnought, 1×5 Prosecutors, 1×5 Witchseekers, Lord Inquisitor Kyria Draxus

Dear readers, you may have noticed I did not outline a deployment above for this round, it’s because the TOs decided to do a little bit of trolling and pick Servo skulls, scrambler fields and one of the new deployments for Pariah Nexus that was teased on Goonhammer the night before, excellent… I hope I go first (I didn’t).

With the meme deployment in full effect it was really easy for Hassan to kick the first objective wholly within 6″ of my deployment zone on the first kick, nice!

Even going first, with my fire power, strategems and list I believed I would be able to take control of the flanks where I needed to and push through to win the game while controlling where Hassan goes in the centre. Unfortunately, I had a very lack luster first turn which almost sealed the deal for me. I was unable to kill one of the dreadnoughts and a unit of Custodian Wardens that I had planned to and so Hassan was able to get a few extra kicks in.

He was all but tabled at the end of the game but that doesn’t really matter for servo skulls primary scoring, so I was only able to secure the one objective for most of the game.

Hassan was incredible chuffed though, as it was all but secured that he would get best in faction Custodes for the weekend. He thanked me profusely at the beginning of our game for winning against the previous custodes player by such a margin (lol) and offered me copious shots of Jägermeister throughout our game of which I accepted one.

It was a very fun match, but I got a little cucked by servo skulls, as did a lot of other players. If you go and look at the best coast pairing placings for round 4 of this event you will see a lot of people that should have won (and conversely should have lost) because they went first on this mission. But also, that’s quite funny isn’t it.

Round 5 – Phil’s Iron Templars (W, 71-39) – Vital ground, search and destroy, vox static

Phil’s List: Lieutenant with Combi-weapon – Master of Machine War, Techmarine – Adept of the Omnissiah, Techmarine – Target Augury Web, The Emperor’s champion, ASTRAEUS, BT Gladiator Lancer, 2x BT Gladiator Reaper, Redemptor Dreadnought, Scout Squad, 2x Vindicator

In my deployment against Phil, I adopted the coward formation, walking around to his side of the board after my deployment to make sure he wasn’t actually playing against anyone.

Phil had big tank, very big tank, an Astraeus in fact! But Phil couldn’t move around the table very good, got stuck and played a bit too conservatively because he was scared of sisters (and rightly so they’re scary!). Phil got the first turn, but because we were playing on vital ground there was no middle objective and he was unable to reach the far ones, bugger. He did infiltrate come scouts onto one, but I made a 10″ charge turn one to deny him scoring any primary in round 2, sorry phil! He also moved off all his points in the 4th battle round which meant he wouldn’t score any primary in round 5, oops. It was round 5, we were all tired and Phil did say he drove up at 4am the day before, so fuck that.

I did sisters things, denied him primary with shooting and scooting Seraphim, used lone operatives to control objectives and score points which he couldn’t stop, and generally be annoying.

Highlight of the game was my Exorcist one hitting a Gladiator Reaper with indirect rockets, haha gottem (also it exploded).

The only damage the Astraeus took all game was from a Vindicare assassin who I was forgetting to shoot most turns. After this game I checked in on how the other sisters players were doing to see if I needed to win my last round to get best in faction, unfortunately I think I would need to.

I was tied with another sisters players 3-2 but was significantly ahead on battle points, so if I secured another win I should have it.

Round 6 – Ben’s Dread Mob Orks (W, 95-66) – Take and Hold, Crucible of battle, delayed reserves

Ben’s List: Boss Snikrot, Mek – Supa-glowy Fing, Warboss in Mega Armour, Zodgrod Wortsnagga, 1×20 & 1×10 Gretchin, 2x Trukk, 6x Killa Kans, 2×10 Lootas, 6x Meganobz, STOMPA

Ben’s list contained an excellent shit-post which apparently was inspired by my Rataclysm shit-post list, his is below:

Did you ever hear the tragedy of Big Mek Reggett “Da Kunnin”?

I thought not. It’s not a story the Inquisiton would tell you. It’s an Ork legend. Mek Reggett was a Big Mek of da WAAAGH, so powerful and so wise he could use the WAAAGH energy to influence the scrap heaps to create Stompas…

He had such a knowledge of the junk piles that he could even keep the boyz he cared about from getting krumped. WAAAGH energy is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be unnatural. He became so powerful… the only thing he was afraid of was losing his Stopma, which eventually, of course, he did. Unfortunately, he taught his grot oiler everything he knew, then his grot krumped him in his sleep. It’s ironic he could save others from a krumping, but not himself.

Ben was a real G, a lovely guy and a fantastic way to end Terracon by playing against a Stompa! Getting cucked with delayed reserves again though, not a great time innit.

The pre-game talk with Ben was the funniest shit I’d ever heard. I was a bit delirious by that point in the weekend, but I still thought I could bring it home with a win. Ben mentioned it might be his last chance to win against sisters for a long time given the codex reveals the previous night, he is probably right, sisters look cooked as hell.

Ben’s list was fairly straight forward, and my game plan was too. Ben’s plan was to run Stompa forward, my plan was to avoid Stompa, kill everything else and win by being cunnin.

Ben went first, which works for me I guess. Sisters are great at denying primary and scoring lots later in the game. He moved his Stompa up, didn’t give it +1 to hit with the Mek and I popped smoke on my Immolator so he was hitting on 6’s. He did 4 damage to my Immolator!

I thought, huh this Stompa actually might be trash, I was a bit scared of it after looking at the datasheet but after it’s opening salvo I wasn’t afraid anymore.

In my turn I pushed forward, exposing most of my army to shoot lots of things, pewpew.

I killed a Trukk and some Killa kans, and enough lootas so Ben would only be holding the middle objective which had 20 Gretchins on it, I wasn’t taking that anytime soon.

In Bens turn 2, he gave the Stompa +1 to hit with the Mek and full re-rolls to hit with a strategem, fuck I had been baited. Turns out Stompa’s are very strong and I am very scared. Ben killed lots of shit, oops.

I was sweating a bit too much during this game considering the vibe Ben was putting out, but I wanted to win best in faction, so I put my try hard shoes on and tried to deny as many points as I possibly could.

I ended up pretty much being entirely in control of the bottom half of the board as Ben positioned his Lootas in the big ruin at the top half of the board where they stayed for the rest of the game after they disembarked the Stompa, they are very useless if they aren’t standing still and shooting as they hit on 6’s normally with their deff guns, so I was very safe on the bottom objective and on home as the Stompa took too long to get there.

I took Bens home objective with Celestine + Zephyrim & Seraphim at the bottom of my turn 3 so I ended up controlling that too, which allowed me to score 15 twice in my turn 4 and in turn 5 after the Stompa took my home objective away from me I held the middle with left over Seraphim.

With supply lines I knew I would be able to score 40 secondary points without any trouble, but I also thought Ben would be able too and I didn’t think I would win the primary game, but other than the Lootas and Stompa Ben was tabled at the end of the game, since when were Sisters so good???

There was a moment of contention during the game which as I looked back turned out to be a total shit show. After all my deep strikes I decided I wanted to fall Celestine back, and Ben then declared he would reactively move with the Gretchins, woops. Ben graciously allowed for a take back (provided I give him a big WWE style handshake), which would have been a swing in points of at least 20 (I still probably would have won), but I can’t move after deep strikes are down, so I’m dumb. This was after 10 minutes of deliberation as to whether I needed one, or two Seraphim squads to kill 10 Gretchin with their flamers, and then I rolled 24 shots with one squads flamers and overkilled the Gretchin by 10 lol.

So, I ended up going 4-2 after trying to gambit for the first two games and losing one of them, and then getting meme’d on by Servo-skulls. Pretty successful weekend IMO.

I ended up winning the best in faction sisters award, so now I can start every reddit comment with ‘as a best in faction winning player’ when giving people bad advice they don’t need on how to not enjoy Warhammer, neat.

As always, competitive Warhammer is a complete joke, but the tournament was fantastic. I ran into people I previously met at Rataclysm and had some nice chats, I discussed a tape measure throwing incident with Phil from last year and enjoyed a great weekend away with my friends abusing hospitality employees, what else can a man ask for? I’ll definitely be returning next year!

As soon as I returned home, the tournament itch struck immediately. The next event I was attending wasn’t until late August and that simply was not close enough. I signed up for the Geelong town open on the 6-7th of July, which is in the middle of school holidays which is great for me! I also convinced 3 of my friends to sign up so I have people to complain to when I lose my games, my favourite past time.

Will I take the new Sisters codex? Probably not. They’re cool and strong and that’s not cool. I think I’ll take my Ad Mech if I can get them painted. My LGS had a 20% off sale so I picked up a knight which should fill in a bunch of points, just have 3 weeks to get everything ready! Hopefully the Ad Mech changes are good enough to give me motivation.

Happy hobbying losers.

– Signed best in faction winning player Ryan Jones