Welcome to the first blog post from the Normal Blokes – a podcast (& now website) dedicated to improving the competitive 40k experience. I’m Nathan, I’ve been with the club for roughly 8 years, love the gaming side of the hobby and am lucky to get to play alongside some great players and even better people.
We wanted to start a blog alongside our long running podcast not only to get back in the swing of things from a content creation perspective but to help get the word out about what we believe is currently one of the best places to play 40k right now anywhere – Queensland, Australia. With 5 of the 8 Aussie team members taking out the recent Challenger’s Cup being from Queensland, a thriving teams scene owing to the 180 person 6-player events being run by superstar TO Josh McGowan, some awesome clubs that have fueled the growth of the scene (Lowrollers, ITA, Drop Bears, Sun Coast Legion to name a few) and a string of ANZTC wins through the last decade, it’s a privilege to play in a friendly community that doubles as a teams shark tank.
The upcoming Penrith 8-player teams run by South Pacific Gaming has not only several Queensland teams travelling to the event but showcases a bunch of other excellent 40k communities in our country. From host state New South Wales, to talented teams from Victoria, the Australian Capital Territory and a number of other states. Our club is super excited to be sending a team and we appreciate the hard work of TO Peter O’Neil for his excellent job putting together one of the most anticipated team events on the Aussie calendar.
Few key things about the event:
- The event will be played on WTC terrain, with all relevant WTC FAQs in place. The “denser” nature of WTC layouts means you’ll see a lot less long range shooting armies than on say GW standard layouts – with melee (World Eaters, Emperors Children, Spectacle of Spite Drukhari) & faster, more short ranged shooting or combined arms armies (Eldar, Infernal Lance Chaos Knights, Admech) favoured commonly by the teams we’ve looked at.
- Good variance of deployments and missions – we don’t actually play a tonne of Hammer & Anvil in QLD Gladiator Events, so having Hammer deployments for some key rounds of the event has been fun to explore in preparation
- Mission 1: Crucible of Battle, Terraform
- Mission 2: Crucible of Battle, Scorched Earth
- Mission 3: Hammer & Anvil, Take and Hold
- Mission 4: Hammer & Anvil, Hidden Supplies
- Mission 5: Search & Destroy, Take and Hold
We wanted to do a showcase of a few of the team compositions that will feature at the event to give a sense of the meta and some of the teams favoured to take out the top spot.
The Normal Blokes
Starting with our team, we’ve enjoyed putting together a composition we feel can take on a variety of lists – some of the team have been pretty creative in trying to pick some off the wall options for the event (Tallyband Deathguard, Lords of Dread CK, Heartband Votann), while others haven’t seem to have changed their list since the start of the edition (eyeing the Awakened Warriors piloted by Liam – it looks oddly similar to his WTC list of 2 and a half years ago).
The team is a regular participant in Gladiator Gaming events, has some experienced teams players in its ranks and is no stranger to the top tables of team events in our home state so we are excited to give this teams event our best shot.
Ben – Adeptus Mechanicus – Haloscreed
Brian – Drukhari – Kabalite Cabal
Dan – Death Guard – Tallyband Summoners
Dineeth – Chaos Knights – Lords of Dread
Jordan – Ultramarines – Gladius Task Force
Liam – Necrons – Awakened Dynasty
Nathan – Chaos Space Marines – Renegade Raiders
Rory – Leagues of Votann – Hearthband
The Horsemen
Going into this event the two time defending champion, the Horsemen is a team of QLD and NSW players captained by Erik. Fresh off wins in the captain’s chair this year at Challenger’s Cup, ANZTC and 3 of the last 4 Gladiator Gaming Teams Events, anyone wanting to win the event will have to go through the Horsemen.
Much of the team has had a lot of successful event showings with the faction they are currently playing (Erik’s Invasion Nids, Jacob W’s World Eaters, Alex’s Orks as well as the Thousand Suns and Death Guard in the hands of Jacob O and Josh W respectively), while others have gone for a combination of strong meta picks (Brodie’s Shadowmark Talon, Dave’s Emperor’s Children) and interesting left field choices (Xenocreed GSC piloted by Hayden).
Brodie – Raven Guard – Shadowmark Talon
Dave – Emperors Children – Coterie of the Conceited
Erik – Tyranids – Invasion Fleet
Hayden – Genestealer Cult – Xenocreed
Jacob – Thousand Sons – Grand Coven
Josh – Death Guard – Virulent Vectorium
Jacob – World Eaters – Bezerker Warband
Team Victoria
With 5 of the players from this year’s ANZTC team a part of this team, including WTC staples Matt & Jeremy, Team Victoria is sending a very strong team to take on the Penrith teams event. The team composition is fascinating – some meta stalwarts like Aiden’s Infernal CK & Kyle’s Aspect Host Aeldari do appear, while the new Drukhari Spectacle of Spite detachment makes its teams meta debut piloted by Matt, with speed and tricks galore. Some great unique picks here though with Rhys’ Genestealer & Ravener heavy Invasion Fleet, Erina’s Champions of Faith Sisters and even the Imperial Agents making an appearance with Jeremy’s Imperialis Fleet list (I have no clue what this does and not sure I plan to find out). It will be great to see how this less familiar composition performs at the event.
Aiden – Chaos Knights – Infernal Lance
Anthony – Death Guard – Champions of Contagion
Erina – Adeptus Sororitas – Champions of Faith
Jeremy – Imperial Agents – Imperialis Fleet
Lochie – Dark Angels – Gladius Task Force
Matt – Drukhari – Spectacle of Spite
Rhys – Tyranids – Invasion Fleet
ACT – ‘The Hoarse Men’
Several great teams coming from the ACT, with their squad that put in an excellent ANZTC performance this year split between two teams, but love the team name on this one. Some strong picks with Dale’s Haloscreed, Aaron’s 50 Bezerker World Eaters, Ewart’s Emperor’s Children and Joe’s Virulent Death Guard. Bully Boys is relatively common amongst the teams at the event as an Ork archetype, and we see it here in Andrew’s list, while one of the event’s numerous Stormravens are here in the Grey Knights Warpbane list. Interesting team construction and would expect both this and the other team featuring ANZTC players from ACT (Just position your models better – another great team name) to feature in the big rounds of the event.
Aaron – World Eaters – Berzerker Warband
Chris – Blood Angels – Liberator Assault Group
Cody – Grey Knights – Warpbane Task Force
Dale – Adeptus Mechanicus – Haloscreed
Ewart – Emperors Children – Coterie of the Conceited
Joe – Death Guard – Virulent Vectorium
Joel – Adeptus Custodes – Talons of the Emperor
NSW – Sovereign
Would be rude not to feature a team from the illustrious host state – NSW. It was partially our awesome experience at Gonghammer last December that made NSW a destination for our club’s travelling event this year. They have an absolutely thriving event scene, just placed second in ANZTC and as next years’ host and we know they’ll be some great teams trying to keep the trophy from running back up to Queensland again at this event.
While NSW’s strength is spread out in the field, this comp catches the eye for some successful players and interesting lists. Tay’s Montka is one of the few Tau lists at the event but can still do work given the amount of firepower its packing, Nathan’s Infernal CK is one of common meta menaces that teams will need an answer for, which goes double for Woody’s Haloscreed Admech. Custodes is more common than expected at this event, with Alex’s Talons of the Emperor list here – definitely can be a strong pick with the right table, while Todd’s less zerk heavy World Eaters, Matt’s Combined Arms Guard, Arian’s Ultras Gladius and Zakk’s Renegade Raiders (love to see it!) round out the rest of the team.
Alexander – Adeptus Custodes – Talons of the Emperor
Arian – Ultramarines – Gladius Task Force
Matt – Astra Militarum – Combined Arms
Nathan – Chaos Knights – Infernal Lance
Todd – World Eaters – Berzerker Warband
Woody – Adeptus Mechanicus – Haloscreed
Zakk – Chaos Space Marines – Renegade Raiders
Apologies we couldn’t get to every team (and looking forward to those we missed giving us a run for our money down at the event). All the teams’ lists, as well as tracking of the event when it kicks off on 15 November can be found on Best Coast Pairings here: South Pacific Gaming
Our team is looking forward to 5 awesome games each in Penrith and also to dissecting the team’s performance after the event on the podcast. Best of luck to all the other teams we’ll see at the event!
