GSC wins Pocket GT in Seattle

[Talonwinter]

I won a GT with GSC this weekend. Now it was a pocket GT 5 games at 1000 points with maelstrom and one game with pure kill points.

 

It was my first time playing the GSC and to win my first try out was cool!!

 

 

I played GK, Raven guard in a sky hammer, Necrons, IG blob's, and a Nasty Orc bike list in the finals.

 

My list was the Brood cycle bare bones except a 20 man genestealer unit and claws on the meta's.

With a patty and a magus, and final The SUB Uprising with 5 acolytes and one metamorphs unit with whips.

 

The formation is really good I went second 3 times and didn't have a issue dealing with people shooting entail the last round.

 

The 20 man genestealer unit was no joke. I only lost warlord in the last round to the orks with the bike star shooting me to death.

 

Vs armies that have Flamers I feel you need to have at lest 8 man units. Vs the SM and Gray knights I lost unit because of lucky over watch dropping a unit to down to two guys. then losing in combat. With 7-8 guys I would have been able to kill the units I had assaulted. 5 man squads are not the way to go. Also you need to have at lest one 15-20 man unit to hide the magus and banner in.

 

 

With everything coming in attacking different areas the big unit get left alone most of the time.

 

Play GSC in maelstrom is almost unfair. They can be in so many places at once.

 

What I toke away from this GT was I needed bigger acolyte units 8 man at lest. If you are doing pure GSC you need at lest one 20 man Genestealer unit and two 15 man Acolyte two hide the banner and magus. Having some OB troops is nice but not a must have.

 

At higher point lever the Primus can be nice but is not needed I feel. Having more units is better then having him I think. I had a few games where I didn't get any assaults in the first turn or only one unit could. The rest had to sit around and wait for the next turn to do anything.

 

Screening your Large units with a small unit or two allows you to get a 3 to 2+ cover save in the open if you get night fight. I did this with my genestealer unit twice which mad shooting them pointless for the most part.

 

All in all a fun GT.

[Tamwulf]

Congratulations on the win!

 

Do you think unfamiliarity with your list could have been the reason you performed so well? As in, your opponents totally underestimated the shenanigans you could pull?

 

It was only 1000 points- which makes the game very difficult to play. Did the 'Pocket GT' rules severally restrict what you could and could not bring? Did it limit CADs? Etc. Etc.

 

Sounds like you learned a lot about how you want to make your army in the future! Congrats on the win again, and good luck with the "new" army!

[WestRider]

Congrats, dude!

 

Do you think unfamiliarity with your list could have been the reason you performed so well? As in, your opponents totally underestimated the shenanigans you could pull?

 

It was only 1000 points- which makes the game very difficult to play. Did the 'Pocket GT' rules severally restrict what you could and could not bring? Did it limit CADs? Etc. Etc.

I played against a different Stealer Cult Player, and I think this format did really favour them in some ways. In particular, we were playing 1K on 6x4 Tables, which makes Board Control much more difficult for most Armies. Also, it was a pretty generous time limit for 1K, and I've seen that time can be a big concern for GSC. That said, I was still going to lose that Game, since my list was pretty mediocre at Board Control, and totally lacking in ObSec, and those are big factors in Maelstrom.

 

The restrictions were pretty reasonable, but definitely stricter than ITC. No Super-Heavies or Gargantuans, and much more limited opportunities for Allies (Most of the Imperium could only take Inquisition or Assassins, CultMech and Skitarii together, I think Harlequins could be taken with Eldar or Dark Eldar, something like that. I didn't pay too much attention because I was running single-Codex, as were all of my Opponents.

 

I'm kind of surprised I didn't see Eldar or Daemons doing better. They both scale really well down to lower Points level Games.

[Lord Hanaur]

I liked the 6x4 tables because it allows you to utilize outflanking and dep striking and such without crowding the board so much.  I was using a fairly short range army, so it certainly wasn't to my advantage per se, but placement of objectives solves a lot of that problem.  

 

I missed out on playing you for the top spot Chancy.  It would have been sweet, but as you know, Oseas seized on me and we didn't get to duke it out.  The good news though is that the Deffrollaz took first and second.  Hooray!

 

The real challenge for me was the fact that it was a Maelstrom tournament.  In my last game, my opponent scored 4 points twice in a row, which made it all but impossible to overcome.  He could just tie the rst of the game and win.  That's where the Tennis match scoring kind of fails is that all you have to do is hold serve after you get a couple rounds won.  That is the one thing about Maelstrom being a thing at a tournamernt.  Even if you design your list for maximum objective grabbing as you and i did, the draw can have far more impactful than your skill can overcome.  I still think it's the most fun version of 40K, the one I like playing the most and whjy i was jazzed to go to this tournament (and would go again for sure).  i just have my reservations as to why we use it in actual tournament events.  I guess, given that prizes were rafffled, it hardly mattered who won, other than ITC points.  That made it okay that it was maelstrom also.  

 

I don't know if I got the chance to tell you but our newest members of the club got their first wins in a tournament as well!  they both won two games, their first ever tournament.  so i was pretty happy for them as well.

[WestRider]

I liked the 6x4 tables because it allows you to utilize outflanking and dep striking and such without crowding the board so much.  I was using a fairly short range army, so it certainly wasn't to my advantage per se, but placement of objectives solves a lot of that problem.

Oh, it's not inherently a problem, but it is a factor that helps GSC, with their excellent ability to repeatedly redeploy. If there were either more opposing Army or less Board, it would be easier for the Opponent to have Units in more places to counter the GSC Units when they come in.

 

The real challenge for me was the fact that it was a Maelstrom tournament.  In my last game, my opponent scored 4 points twice in a row, which made it all but impossible to overcome.  He could just tie the rst of the game and win.  That's where the Tennis match scoring kind of fails is that all you have to do is hold serve after you get a couple rounds won.

That's a problem in any variety of Maelstrom. In the basic version, it happens when one Player gets a huge score one Turn, in Annihilation-style, it happens when one Player consistently wins each Turn by a small margin. Either situation is easy to overcome in the other version.

[Lord Hanaur]

In normal mealstrom i can make up those points on d3.  Also in normal maelstrom, the eopponent actually has to roll and doesnt automatically get 2.  So theres some other things that go into why it works less well with tennis scoring.

 

If they changed it to 8 i think it might work better.  Then when there is a tie at 8, secondaries win it.  Works for me and it eliminates the "holding serve" thing because at 8, you have to win three fo the rounds and i think if you win three rounds, and tie others two others, you have clearly won.  Wining two rounds?  Not as clear cut in my mind.

[WestRider]

In normal Maelstrom, your Opponent can roll 3s for all of their d3s, while you roll 1s for all of yours. Both versions have their issues.

[Lord Hanaur]

In normal Maelstrom, your Opponent can roll 3s for all of their d3s, while you roll 1s for all of yours. Both versions have their issues.

One has less.  Just saying.  Assuming two is no more rational than assuming 3.  All Im saying is, it gives me the chance to come back and i dont have to worry about someone stonewalling, because they KNOW I can come back.  i've made up 7 point deficits before and won.  its exciting.  Some people crumble when the points start mounting up and i suppose I am the opposite.  When the odds get tougher, I get happier.  =)  Epic comebacks are awesome.

 

in my game against Oseas, i spent turns 2-5 with nothing left in my army except for 4 single crisis suits and an ethereal.  Lol.  i was tied 5-5 by the time the game ended.  Only reason he won was he got to my ehtereal in the last round and killed him which tabled me, just barely.  It was a pretty cool game.