Contact Lost went to Dice Crusher!

 Hello everyone!

Yes, today we awakened our inner Shakespeares! So from this day on be sure to bookmark and check this page from time to time, as Contact Lost is extending its content to written form also. We will cover some thoughts about events, lists and all the stuff that suits better into written, than spoken form here.
With those greetings in mind let's hop into our first post here: Dice Crusher 2023, and our attendance there. Vitalis, Joker and our retired all-father Tweak, along with our friends, with car packed to the limits tried to conquer Toruń last weekend - lets see, what came out of this.

Guys, so first polish GT in new AoO meta, what were you expecting and how much preparation you did?

Joker: I’ve been playing daemons as often as I could since the FAQ for the faction dropped a couple of days later than all the bundled up publications were released. Whilst I was almost certain I was going to take Chaos Daemons to the event I initially tested quite broadly across the different builds I could come up with and only about a week before list submission I came to the realisation that I should focus on models I physically own or can borrow :D

Vitalis: So first of all after FAQ/dataslate dropped, me and my 4k pts of Dark Angels were super hyped up. I cooked up a RW/DW list, with Dice Crusher in mind, painted it,  took it to one of our locals...and got slaughtered :D At the same time couple of guys told me "stop swapping armies so much". And that stuck with me - so I went back to one that I have most reps with - Imperial Knights. I did hell lot of research, how to squeeze 3 Questoris ones most effectively, found the list that did top5 in Adelaide, tweaked it to my prefferences and hoped for the best :) We did one training session before the event, and I was sold on this idea - knowing by your insticts what your units can and cannot do beats having even the strongest army in the meta and playing it blind. And even so I'm trying, its really hard to get enough repetitions with rest of the life going around.

What lists did you take?

Joker: As I mentioned above, the final decisions re the roster sort of came down to the availability of models - I don’t actually own as many daemons painted to tabletop standard as I would have liked to have :D Flamers are a no-brainer, Greater Daemons because I like playing with them and they are the only units that reliably kill and then flesh hounds and skull cannons for screening and holding backfield objectives respectively. They can also kill some objective holders or opposition screens. Two little characters to buff the flamers and to do Despoilers of Reality on missions 13, 23 and 11 which were all about to be played during the GT.

Joker and his demonic horde.

Vitalis: 3 big guys! I love them! Shame on you all CK/IK players for not playing knights the proper way! From last season of playing 3 big Chaos Knights I learned that if you boost survivability of big fellas you can actually make them withstand decent amount of punishment. So I went with house Taranis for those extra wounds, healing and 6+FNP, that should translate into at least 10 bonus wounds during the game. So adding it all up you are playing with 34ish wounds knights. First cornerstone of the list was a Knight of Mars Crusader so I can pop the Calculated Targeting from the start of the game (fun fact - I did not use that gem whole event), and another layer of protection from Master of The Forge.
Paladin with Princeps, so I can give rerolls to other big guys (works like charm!) and Gallant so I can park him on the middle and farm Renew The Oaths secondary. That trio was supplemented by 2 Helverins and 2 Warglaives. Plan was solid - run Gallant to the middle and farm and either force your opponent to deal with him, or let me take middle of the board and deal with the real threats.

Princeps Vitalis and his House Taranis

What surprised you in factions and lists everyone else took?

Joker: I think I found the faction spread a little surprising – 10 marines were expected but only 2 of those were Deathwing termies and 2 Iron Hands?? Guard had a small showing of 4 and so did Custodes which is a very popular faction in Poland (I feel like everyone has them!) with only 1 of those being the 20 wardens list. No Necrons even though they were the loudest advocates of the WDL system to be played on singles. Finally only 1 Tau list using 2 Riptides with Ion accelerators – I would have expected more Tau in general just spamming Crisis suits with hammerheads. 

Vitalis: I was really suprised to see no Tyranids, nor Necrons. With Nid's I guess I just did not realize how much of a hit they took, but lack of Necrons was really suprising to me. SMPosterBoys spam was expected, and I'm not shocked that not all of them were IH/DA. Lots of people were hoarding theirs favoured chapters, and now there is a chance for all of them to be at least playable they just went for it. Kudos for that.

Any thoughts about how changed factions work now?

Joker: Tau points increases definitely hurt them and so did the detachment changes, their firepower is somewhat reduced but they still feel strong and Krawat managed to go 3-1-1. If you would call Guard a changed faction since they got a codex not that long before the introduction of AoO then they’re just incredibly filthy – after hearing all their rules prior to the game I had against that faction I felt really bummed without any desire to actually play the game – and I haven’t felt like that for a long long time. Whilst Space Marines are finding their way into the meta without Armour of Contempt I don’t think the same can be said about Grey Knights and Chaos Space Marines who were my first 2 opponents – they definitely feel nerfed in my opinion.

Vitalis: My first game was agains Harlequins and I was suprised how....fair they now feel with this reduced 5+ save. Previously playing agains them was plain frustration, and now even they still have tricks to save their butts, you feel like you can actually play against that army and not just pray for failed 4+ saves. SM were no suprise - they can actually really spam their units now. Guard was a bit of suprise to me - as it was all over the table: top, middle, bottom, it turns out its not a fire and forget army after all.

Tell me about your battles during the event.

Joker: Before I begin, I’d like to note that all the lists are available in TK so I’m only going to refer to archetypes in terms of what my opponents played (as much as it’s possible at least). My first opponent was Krystian (HUNK) and his MSU Grey Knights with 3NDK support. MSU, some of them with obsec and mortal wound spam spelled trouble for my list. Be’lakor moved forward from behind one ruin to another. In my turn 2 I was able to place him on the middle objective in a way that he was hidden from the majority of the Grey Knights army so if they wanted to mortal wound the Dark Master to death they had to move through the wall into the middle where they were under threat of heroic intervention from the First Daemon Prince – move that I think won me the game. Unable to clear Be’lakor, as a last resort one NDK teleported into my backfield but failed a charge on the skull cannon that was guarding it. Game ended in what would be a 12-8 score in the differential scoring. Second game was against Adrian’s Iron Warriors with a Land Raider to boot! Another roster capable of dishing hefty amounts of mortal wounds from 3 Decimators. On top of that 3 powerful characters who score points for Rise to Glory and can reliably kill my big guys spelled trouble. After some back and forth shooting, my opponent parked land raider up the table. This was quite a crucial moment as for a change I was hoping Be’lakor would do what he always does for me - whiff. I even considered attacking the behemoth of a tank with the sweep attack. I did want to damage the Land Raider though so I went for the Piercing Strikes in the end, dealing 15 dmg – leaving it on 3’ movement and effectively blocking the charges for Discolords. From that moment, Bloodthirster dropped down to kill Possesed, and Be’lakor did a quick job with Discolords. At this point the game was pretty much won and ended with a 20-0 score. Game three and it’s Imperial Guard. At this point my mind kind of started slipping as in I was super focused during the game but can’t recall too much of it now :D I was fortunate enough to have a table that allowed me to hide my whole army apart from the Lord of Change and I lost the roll-off to go first. We both teleported our units to – Cyryl to shoot with Karsking on short range, me to hold backfield objective with Flamers. Even though I ran out of models by turn 5,while killing only 3 Leman Russes I managed to max out on the primary. Even though Guard gathered more points from secondaries, I managed to win that game with 12-8 score. Round 4 into Tau. The table and mission were not favorable because despite having 2 objectives ready for easy Despoilers, hammer and anvil deployment means a lot of ground to cover before the Tau shoot me to death. I got lucky and got first turn, teleported Be’lakor (he was hidden real far back!) for a Warp Ritual, advanced the other 2 monsters and hoped for the best. All I did was to try position myself in a way so that the Crisis squad couldn’t jump out, shoot me and hide back behind the back ruin where I couldn’t do anything against them. Krawat got a bit greedy in his shooting phase split-firing said Crisis squad into both Be’lakor and the Lord of Change and I lucked out tremendously - 8 wounds to the BT (cap), 13 into Be’lakor and 0 into the Lord of Change. Another hot rolling of saves and the game was essentially decided. I proceed to kill the remainder of the Tau army to secure a 20-0 win. Final round and I found myself in the final of the tournament itself - a lot more than I hoped for going into the event! My opponent was Vladdi and his carefully thought-out Craftworlds list. I went for No Prisoners, Despoilers and Reality Rebels. In hindsight I should have taken Grind Them Down instead of No Prisoners, I guess I wanted to go for a steady ~10 points rather than risk (and I should’ve risked it, it was WDL!). I got first turn so could only really advance up the board. The game was really close throughout the whole thing and Vladdi successfully denied me primary points. There were a couple of interesting spikes on the dice, like I denied a Smite Vladdi rolled an 11 on, which allowed the BT to survive on 1 wound and kill a unit of Banshees that had Will of Asuryan on and jumped to my objective. However, in a different moment 5 flamers failed to kill 5 warp spiders which gave 4 primary points, contributed to Behind Enemy Lines for 2 turns and then scored another 4 for Scout the Enemy. In the end, I lost 61 to 67 on vp, where a score of 63 would have given me the overall win - instead I finished 3rd, tied with Grzelich and his Ravenwing.

Vitalis: Even though I did kit my knights to be as tough as they can be, I was really scared coming into this melta meta. And my first game was agains HLQ with 14 of those. And well....knights stood. My opponent was really struggling to put a dent into them. Even that I lost that game 12-8 due to misjudging secondaries (I took Engage on all Fronts, thinking I'll have to chase them like crazy, and scored 2 from it...), the game was really even, to the point where we both were suprised. Guess the meltas are not that scary when they have to wound on 4+ and then pass a 4+ shields? My second game was against Space Wolves. But again, even that the list was packed with meltas to the limits, it were the Thunder Hammers of those space vikings that were tearing my knights. And even so if those were anything else but wolfen s10 hammers with rerolls, I think, I would have won that. But finally the wolves were drinking mjod on my carapaces after grabbing 11-9 win. Third game was against a Death Guard packing a mix of shooty Dreds and PBCs and Deathshrouds. Aside from Contemptor rolling like crazy and putting 13(!!!!!!!) wounds into my Crusader in one shooting, I was pretty much in control. I forced DG to split the hurt into multiple knights and even that 2 of the big guys have fallen, I pretty much wiped those stink loving terminators and tanks and grabbed a 19-1 win. 4th game against Custodes, was where the Questoris Knights showed they are really ,really underestimated where it comes to durability. My opponent's list was 11 bikes with pregame move, with him having the first turn. I had squad of 5 custodes bikes charging me turn 1 , and 11 of those shooting me. Everything bounced. I did not loose a single knight from those. Even that I was almost blocked in my deployment for 2 rounds I managed to clear all those 11 bikes, consisting of over half of his list, without loosing a single model. Last 3 rounds were all me, even that I finally lost a Crusader, I mopped all the remaining enemies, save one sisters squad hiding in the deployment zone whole game, and grabbed a clean 20-0. And that was actually my last game, as when I came to the fifth table , both me and my daemon opponent were not keen on facing each other lists, so we actually theorycrafted whole game (to my defence I can say we even rolled for crucial things :D ) and since we were both out of even top10, and came to the conclusion that the game would probably end with similar score, we agreed on the draw.
Finally I found my spot at 17th place out of 44 - in my "SCREW YOU, I'M TAKING 3 BIG KNIGHTS" book, I take it as a satisfying result. And pulling one of my best scores in major points at 68/100 with that list is an absolute succes for me.

Any thoughts for the upcoming events?

Joker: I think my next GT is not going to happen for quite a while so I’m not really focusing on that. Despite the success I’ve had with 3 Greater Daemons (yeah yeah, I know Be’lakor technically isn’t one..) I’m probably going to search for a different build with Chaos Daemons purely because of the recent change in the WTC FAQ which requires you to spend movement on rotating round bases – this, along with the terrain layout makes moving the winged beasts an absolute nightmare on some setups.

Vitalis: From what we are planning right now our next GT lines up in June so a lot may change until then. For me I'm definitely sticking with Imperial Knights for now. I'm exploring the extremes right now - for upcoming RTT I'm taking even 4 Questoris riding fellas (expect a report how it went, if it will not end in total disaster :D ). But as a side project, I'm really tempted to give my Eldar forces a proper spin until that June GT.

DC was second polish GT played on WDL, and I heard you both were a bit screwed by the system? Any thoughts compared to 20-0?

Joker: I was more screwed by TK and the fact that it only supports one tiebreaker and then proceeds to rank people alphabetically. I should be thankful for the placing I managed to get as I can’t complain on my rolls or pairings (except Guard of course :D) but losing the final by 6vp (where I could lose by 4 and still win the event) and then finding out on my phone that I dropped to 4th was absolutely gutting. Only later it turned out that I had the same amount of secondary points as 3rd placed Grzelich and it was alphabetical order (when viewing rankings on the phone you don’t see secondary scores so I couldn’t argue it out at the time). All is well that ends well so I’m really happy to get my first podium finish on a GT-level 😊. Regardless, I feel like the hybrid of WDL and 20-0 differential scoring that we had on those 2 GTs this year is an abomination, especially when you take into consideration that we don’t have a proper app to make it easier to manage. It was initially thought as a remedy to the woes of the 20-0 system like splits (10-10 draws without playing the game) and the fact that you can win 5 games and not make it into the top10 and a best of both worlds solution but having attended the event I feel like it is quite the contrary – it’s the worst of both worlds. An early draw in a 2-1-0 scoring actually allows you to submarine your way through the pairings when they’re not random and whilst it might make it hard to win the event it can make it easier to secure a top5 finish.

Vitalis: I was an avid supporter of WDL system in our community....until this weekend :D But after two consecutive Dice Crushers I feel like my visits to Toruń are like visiting Las Vegas - "house always wins". Last year we were playing on 20-0 and all my wins were like 11-9ish, but looses were 0-20ish, and this year when we were playing WDL....I was loosing by 1-2 points and winning by 19/20 landslides....well s#$t :D But back to the topic - I was supporting WDL with a thought that winning an event should be winning all your games, period. But truth be said I wasn't giving it much thought what havoc it wrecks in the middle of the table, especially when playing on this hybrid mode Joker mentioned. Someone event did the math that WDL  system costed me place in top 10 :P I know we are currently in weird transition period from 20-0 to WDL so we will see what future will bring in matters of scoring, here in Poland.

Final thoughts?

Joker: Dice Crusher is a great event, run by great people in a great city. I couldn’t recommend it enough and I wanted to underline that after my not-so-favourable comments regarding the scoring system. The weekend was an absolute blast for Warhammer gaming and interactions with our wargaming buddies from all over the country and I would like to thank the Torun community for setting it all up and my opponents for all of the games and congrats to all on their placings!

Vitalis: It was a blast. I cannot thank Asarnil, Bania (and anyone else that contributed) for that. Its a must-go event in my calendar. Guys, 44 slots are not gonna cut it next year!! :) As I already told Asarnil - one of the best events that I had a pleasure of attending, there is always some chilled out atmosphere in Toruń. And freaking awesome gingerbreads on top of that :D