Games Workshop Knows How To Put On A Heck of An Event

Let’s talk about my experiences at the Warhammer 40k North American Grand Tournament.

A few weekends back I had the joy of traveling up to Grapevine, Texas to play in the official North American Grand Tournament. This event was put on by Games Workshop and featured both Age of Sigmar and Warhammer 40,000 tournaments, as well as a narrative Vigilus Weekender and some other small side events.

Overall this event was a ton of fun and well run – my hat’s off to the whole team from GW (both for running the event and for the poor Brits who managed to survive the Texas heat). Now, I haven’t played in a large tournament like this in about 10 years, since the last time GW ran official GTs in North America, so I was excited to see what a modern event is like and figured I’d share my experience with you.

 My List

As some of you may remember I was actually talking about taking my Movie Marines list to this event. I was actually rushing to get the army done when we got word that the new Space Marine Codex would be coming out soon. I decided that I was going to hold off on finishing the Movie Marines, since rushing to build an army that could be invalidated in a week seemed like a bad idea. Instead, I ended up going with a pure Astra Militarium list, in large part because I wanted to finally, after more than a decade, take our Thunderbolts to an event. So here is the list I ran:

Battalion Detachment(Astra Militarum),  Regiment: Catachan

Emperor’s Conclave Infantry Company [-1CP]

HQ

Company Commander 38pts

-1,003pts

Battalion Detachment (Astra Militarum) Regiment: Catachan

HQ 
Commissar Yarrick – 100pts
Primaris Psyker- 46pts

Troops 
Infantry Squad- 40pts
Infantry Squad- 40pts
Infantry Squad- 40pts

Elites
Officer of the Fleet – 20pts

Flyer
Arvus Lighter – 115pts

401pts

Battalion Detachment (Astra Militarum) Regiment: Catachan
Emperor’s Fist Tank Company [-1CP]

HQ 
Company Commander – 35pts
Boltgun [1pts], Power sword [4pts], Relic: The Dagger of Tu’Sakh
Tank Commander- 190pts
Battle Cannon [22pts], Emperor’s Fist, Heavy Bolter [8pts], Heavy Bolters [16pts], Heavy Stubber [2pts], Relic (Emperor’s Fist): Hammer of Sunderance

Troops 
Infantry Squad- 40pts
Infantry Squad- 40pts
Infantry Squad- 40pts

345pts

Imperial Commander Armory – 3 CP

1749 PTs, 13/18 CP

I think the army is a solid not ultra-competitive army. I’ve got a lot of infantry to take objectives and some concentrated firepower in the Thunderbolts and Tank Commander. The event was played at 1750 pts, so it was a little smaller than normal. I also took a few odd options because this was supposed to be a very WYSIWYG event. This is, for instance, why I didn’t take Stracken and why I have some random powerfists. (The staff was really cool about conversions and I most likely would have been fine using my converted Straken). And yes, as you can barely see – I did use the new Apocalypse movement trays. Now, on to the games.

Game One

Game one I played against a very nice guy running a Knight/Admech force. He had one large knight, a pair of Armigers and a pile of Admech support. I went first and tabled him on my second turn of shooting. This was helped when he fired 7 Kataphron Destroyers at one of my Thunderbolts, killing his whole squad due to overheating, and doing only 2 wounds to the Thunderbolt. Overall I took 3 wounds on the Thunderbolt and lost 6 Guardsmen. This was a pretty atypical game, the other player was younger and mentioned he’d only been playing a short while. Due to the shortness of the game, the only picture I got was as we were setting up. Needless to say, I scored full points.

Game Two

Game two I fought a pretty standard T’au list with 3 Riptides, some deadly commanders in suits, and a ton of drones. There were three objectives: one in the middle and one each in the table quarters we started in. The missions used in this event were from Chapter Approved and all about controlling objectives. This forced him to really run forward to try and keep me off the central objective. I again went first in this game and pounced on him, however, the host of drones meant I couldn’t do much more than start to whittle them down with heavy fire. In return, one my Thunderbolts took heavy damage, though thanks to making three 6+ saves I saved it from destruction. I also lost a pair of Infantry Squads.

On my second turn, I at least had my Infantry in place and opened up with a hail of lasgun fire, wiping out the Drones. I also threw some shots into the Riptides, doing a fair amount of damage. Even Commissar Yarrick got in two wounds with his Stormbolter. In return, my damaged Thunderbolt went down and my Tank Commander and other Thunderbolt took some damage. After a bad start, I was starting to come back.

Turn three I threw the kitchen sink at the Riptides, Plasmas shots from my priest, Fire On My Postion, las shots and everything else. It paid off. By the end of turn 4, despite the loss of my Arvus, and more infantry not a Tau remained alive on the table. Overall a great and hard fought game.

Game Three

This was another hard fought game. I played against a Chaos Soup list. It included a shooty Knight, two Wardogs, two Lord Discordants, Cultists and a melange of Daemons. I seized but had a lack luster first turn, doing decent damage to the big Knight but not killing it (as shown above). In return, I lost some infantry and one of the Thunderbolts was crippled (my Pysker put in great work this game, getting off 4 powers and stopping 4).  Turn two I finished off the big Knight but that was about it, I mostly failed to hurt the Lord Discordants. When the Lord D’s and the close combat Wardog got into my lines on his turn two I thought it was all over.

In the end, I pulled it out. I managed to kill both the Lord Ds on my Turn 3, including killing one in combat with a Company Commanders power fist, and his flamers died in combat to my Catachans. He failed to do much on his turn, One Wardog failing to hurt my Arvus and the other doing a single wound to my tank commander. With 15 minutes left I asked if he wanted to call it (we would have tied), rather than risk me getting a full turn and him not. He chose to play on, and I tabled him on my turn 4.

Game 4

Going into day 2 3- I knew I was in for a reckoning. Game 4 I faced off against 3 beautifully painted Knights.  When the other player made fourteen 4+ saves in a row on turn one, I knew it just wouldn’t be my game. Long story short, I managed to kill one Knight (with a plasma pistol) and kept my Arvus and a Thunderbolt alive till the end. A hard loss, but I wasn’t tabled. If this game seems less exciting then my others, well it was, I shot at 3 Knights a lot, that is about it.

Game 5

For game five I was ecstatic to get to fight 3 more knights and a bunch of infantry. Like game 4, a lackluster turn 1, where I came oh so close to killing his Dominus, left me doomed. The other guy played well, and aside from us misplaying that center terrain piece (we agreed Knights could move through it, when the TOs didn’t want that to be the case) it was a smooth game. I again kept my Arvus and a Thunderbolt alive, but went down hard. I did at least get to kill the one big Knight.

Final Thoughts

Congrats to Thomas, Matt and Sebastian! 

Overall this was a really fun event. It was well run by the GW staff with some help, I understand, from Adepticon. It was about as close as a flawless event as I’ve seen, with no problems I noticed, and a lot of happy players. I think you can have very fun competitive games and this proved it.

On the other hand, I don’t think the competitive meta is in a good state, I played 4 lists with Knights and one with the T’au version, Riptides. There was a sameness to all the lists I fought I don’t like, overall I saw a lack of list diversity. I don’t think Knights lists are really much fun to play against, but I still had fun games. At the end of the weekend, I got to play 5 games and it was a really good experience. If they run the event next year I’ll be there for sure. It may have been a while since GW has run a big event in North America, but they proved they still have the magic.

Let us know what you think of the Meta, and the GT if you went, down in the comments!

Author: Abe Apfel

Abe is that rare thing, an Austin local born and raised here. Though he keeps on moving around, DC, Japan, ETC., he always seems to find his way back eventually. Abe has decades of experience with a wide range of tabletop and RPG games, from historicals, to Star Wars to D&D and 40K. He has been contributing to BOLS since almost the start, back when he worked at and then owned a local gaming store. He used to be big into the competitive Warhammer tournament scene but age has mellowed him and he now appreciates a good casual match. He currently covers 40K tactics and lore, as well as all things Star Wars, with occasional dabbling in other topics. Abe remains in mourning over the loss of WFB to this day.