I love to be sweaty when I play. Sometimes you have to get in the zone, and hold your breath an unhealthy amount of time while making 6+ saves. That’s the adrenaline that gets me going.

That’s not what I come to a doubles tournament for, but boy-howdy did the Emperor tell me that wasn’t going to be the case this time.

Let’s talk about my experience at the Twin-Linked Doubles event hosted by Red Claw Gaming on the 24th.

Originally, me and my teammate / long time bestfriend Dyllyn we’re going to spam as many Daemon Princes as possible between the CSM index and the Daemons index. But alas, we didn’t have the time to get that all together and paint it.

So we landed on something a lot more silly. Normally I’d copy paste the lists straight from the app, but these are short enough I can just type it.

Dyllyn brought: Be’lakor, Skarbrand, Bloodthirster.

I brought: A Coldstar Commander, six Crisis suits (All cyclics baby), 3 Broadsides, a lone Cadre Fireblade, 2 squads of Tetras, and as many shield drones as I could put in my tiny T’au pockets.

Note: I had played T’au twice before this event at the launch of 10th.

We both decided we wanted to have quick rounds and long breaks, being ok with going 0-3, making new friends, and advertising the site.

But I’ll be honest, there were points where I sweated harder in these games than at the last competitive event I went too. So let’s talk about the matchups, and how it all went down.

Round 1: Death Guard and Tau

Mission: Take and Hold, Secret Intel, Hammer and Anvil

Admittedly, I was very tired during this game. I wasn’t feeling too social, but it was still good vibes, at least that’s how we perceived it. Sorry to my opponents if I seemed checked out.

The game plan was pretty simple, wait until turn 2 for Exemplar of Kauyon to activate on the Crisis blob, then be super aggressive towards the weak flank.

But as always, I snorted too much glue before the event and chose to launch my suits into the middle turn 1. They had a rhino popping out full of Plague Marines that I wanted out of the way early and give us more time to score primary.

Tetras guide the Broadsides at the Rhino, mostly whiff. So that was kind of sad. Totally forgot I had the one shot missiles on them, so they probably could have got it done to be honest. I think it had 4 wounds after shooting.

The crisis tried to chip some wounds but I didn’t want to overcharge turn 1 and lose all the suits to a 4 wound Rhino. It was sad.

Dyllyn did what Daemons do. No shoot aura around Be’lakor, and ate the weak flanks. The opponents would be way too busy to deal with the Crisis blob.

Their turn 1 came around and the Rhino moved, which then the plague marines got out so they couldn’t charge. I think he was baiting the over watch first and sacrificing the charge for it which worked, but the shooting wasn’t enough to hamper the Crisis.

That being said, his small amount of shooting, in combination with the -1 save plague, and my awful ability to roll higher than 2, got 2 and a half suits dead.

Thanks bolters.

There isn’t to much more to tell here. A blob of 10 Blightlord Terminators dropped in our backline and fought Broadsides for 2 rounds straight while we took the rest of the board.

Skarbrand took an entire 800 points of T’au shooting to the face and lived with 1 wound. healed to 4 next turn, then kept on eating.

It was the opposing Tau players first event, and it showed. I think he was nervous and it caused him to play a little too cagey. Otherwise I think it would have been a much more hectic game.

If you’re reading this, I hope it was a good first event for you. Just remember to breath and you’ll have a good time. See you at the next one.

Final Score: 100 – 72 Win

Game 2: Custodies and Black Templar

Mission: Scorched Earth, Supply Lines, Crucible of Battle

This mission was so rough, my guy.

Before the game me and Dyllyn spoke at length about what the game plan was. We both agreed: Helbrecht needs to die ASAP.

Luckily, we were able to get turn 1, and the Crisis zoomed up the board for the perfect angle on his squad, killing everything but Helbrecht and one of his Crusader friends.

Thanks to Supply Lines, we had the extra CP to allow for a fire and fade.

That got rid of a ton of their punch. But not all of it: 5 Wardens and Trajann, a Blade Wizard and 5 Guardsmen, then a massive Crusader block with Grimaldus. There was still a ton to deal with.

Their turn 1 was mostly staging thank goodness. Turn 2 I’m able to wipe the Guardsmen Squad and make the Wardens use their once per game 4+ Feel no Pain. But that would be the end of our luck. Their turn 2, things got really bad.

You see, shooting those Guardsmen, I had to hazardous roll 3 dice per suit. I failed enough to kill 3 whole suits of my own. I think the math is 1 and a half suits on average. So yeah, that wasn’t great, and they had a big Trajann looking right at them. Long story short is the Crisis and some Tetras got mulched over the next few turns.

Luckily we have the Bloodthirster and Be’lakor dealing with the massive Crusader Blob.

It went: Okay.

They punched back hard and the Bloodthirster had to fall back, tagging in Be’lakor; whom Trajann ate alive next turn like it was nobodies business.

The points were so close that it came down to Skarbrand making one save, and some Tetras being able to raise an objective along side the Bloodthirster who picked up and dropped onto the enemy home objective.

Really though, the game didn’t matter. Our opponents have the kind of energy the community needs. We were laughing at that table constantly. I look forward to having another game with either of those guys in the future. It’s refreshing to see people play the game because they enjoy the social aspect of it just as much as the competitive aspect.

Bless your imperial hearts.

Final Score: 83 – 57 Win

Game 3: Imperial Knights and Death Guard

Mission: Purge the Foe, Targets of Opportunity, Search and Destroy

Let me set the stage for you.

A massive Lancer Knight, who gets 20 dice on a free tank shock. A bunch of flamer Plague Drones, and of course, Nurglings.

We did have one thing on our side: psychological warfare.

Imagine this: You’ve never played T’au before. And you opponent says to you, while laying out 63 dice: “Yeah, this squad on turn 2, because of my enhancement, gets Sustained Hits 2 when guided. They’ll be guided by these Tetras, who give them full hit re-rolls. They’re all strength 8, AP 2, Damage 2 when overcharged. I can move 18 inches and have 18 inch range assault guns, then fire and fade for 12 inches with 2 CP.”

I’m going to quote Sebastian, the Imperial Knight player, as I think he had the most genuine understanding of all our opponents on what was about to happen.

Holy shit.

Sebastian, probably

I think this won us the game. Not the actual use of the unit, but it caused enough fear between that and the three greater Daemons to make the massive knight hide in the back just a turn too long.

Because believe me, this game was crazy tight. Because the primary had to do with killing more than the opponent for points, I think we had the innate advantage on primary. But the secondary game was far more in their favor intrinsically.

Targets of Opportunity lets you picked 2 fixed, then still draw 1 tactical each turn.

Our list, if you’re keen eyed, is a free 20 on both Assassinate and Bring It Down. I think they were the first to notice this, and they capitalized hard. Each Crisis suit that died was 2 points, Broadsides 3, the greater daemons are both characters and monsters so their all worth 8 essentially. Yeah, it was brutal.

The first two turns were a dance essentially, whoever leaped out first was going to have to take way more causalities in return if they whiff even a little bit, or chose the wrong targets.

This became the only time Kauyon becomes really good, which I think helped tipped the scales in our favor.

Just for some added narrative. Have you ever looked at Skarbrands profile?

It will never stop being funny.

Flat damage six.

All day opponents eyes would widen when Dyllyn announced they had just taken 24 damage. It was so good. I love that little red monster.

Until this game, he was MVP every time. But in this game, he was locked in combat with some Deathshroud for three rounds of combat, because they couldn’t stop making 4+ invulnerable. It was bananas.

Man, the thrills this game gave me.

Unsurprisingly at this point, our opponents were awesome. I had met them before, but I didn’t have a chance to play a game until now. It was rad, and I look forward to losing in the rematch.

Final Score: 89 – 86 Win

It’s funny, I came into this event expecting to get destroyed because of how terrible at holding objectives our list was in the grand scheme of things.

But we ended up winning the whole thing, and making some new friends along the way.

My goal for the year was the win an event, I don’t know if doubles really counts, but I’m counting it. So that’s a neat feeling.

Honestly, Dyllyn is the true mastermind behind most of our plays, in the four-ish years we have played, I’ve only beaten him once. So thanks to him for dealing with my glue-snorting ways all these years.

And thanks to everyone who dealt with me advertising the blog the entire event, your support and time means the world.

I’m going to remember that day for a long time. It was a good reminder why I play the game. Not to win, or our of some obligation to the ludicrous amounts of money we spend, but because of this games ability to bring some of the most wholesome and kind people to it.

Thanks everyone.

Drink water. Be safe.