The Dallas Open 2019 Major happened this last weekend with 123 players in attendance at the Grapevine Convention Center. Some amazing, world renown players faced off and as the dust settled, Matthew Allee stood victorious atop the rest. The Worthiest Adversary was fortunate enough that our victor could take the time to share with us the exploits of his conquest!
Thousand Sons Battalion
Demon Prince – Warp Bolter, Wings, Talons
Exalted Sorcerer – 2x Power Swords, Warpflame Pistol
5x Rubric Marines, Warpflame Pistol
5x Rubric Marines, Warpflame Pistol
5x Rubric Marines, Warpflame Pistol
Thousand Sons Battalion
Terminator Sorcerer, Stave, Combi-Bolter
Terminator Sorcerer, Stave, Combi-Bolter
5x Rubric Marines, Warpflame Pistol
5x Rubric Marines, Warpflame Pistol
5x Rubric Marines, Warpflame Pistol
Thousand Sons Battalion
Ahriman
Demon Prince – Warp Bolter, Wings, Talons
5x Rubric Marines, Warpflame Pistol
30x Tzaangors
28x Tzaangors
“Follow your fluffy 40k dreams and bring a butt load of your favorite awful units!”
WA: Quick introduction (name, stomping grounds, started playing 40k, other hobbies or points of interest)
MA: Matthew Allee; Texas; Garage-hammer for about a decade; Video games, DnD, and anime
WA: Best placings at a GT and/or Majors event? Playing what army and in what edition?
MA: Quarter Finals at LVO this year is best in my mind. Ynarri with flyers. 8th.
WA: Most recent GT or Majors event attended and placing?
MA: Dallas Open GT Best overall/General; Top 10 LVO 2019
WA: What did you think of that event overall?
MA: Good Event and Fantastic LOS terrain
WA: Break down your list, how does it work and function in general?
MA: List works by generally “attempting” to make only 1 buffed Tzaangor unit as the only valid shooting target each turn. Rubrics are just there to troll and hide out of LOS and make getting angles on the character blob impossible. There are definitely better options for the Rubrics but It was more for the laughs that I took them and aiming for Pure Thousand Sons.
WA: What were you preparing for going into the event? Expectations regarding missions and opposing lists?
MA: I was preparing to go 3-2 or 4-1 at best honestly. It was not expected to win every game and outscore Nick Rose but I will take it lol
WA: Once you got there, what was new or different that you saw but had not anticipated?
MA: I didn’t see any of “THE LIST”. That was very surprising.
WA: First match up? Against who and what army? Who won and by what margin? Who went first? How did the game play out in general? Anything specific stand out?
MA: 3 shooty Knights + assassins. I won by a large margin. Forgot. Knights couldn’t chew through the buffed up Tzaangors before being dropped by smites and random chip damage. Culexus died to Tzaangors immediately as did the other assassins that got near them. Nothing specific
WA: Second match up?
MA: Very similar game with 1 Castellan + 3 gallants + assassins. I won by a large margin. Knights decided to go first. Knights couldn’t chew through the buffed up Tzaangors before being dropped by smites and random chip damage. Culexus died to Tzaangors immediately as did the other assassins that got near them. Nothing specific
WA: Third match up?
MA: Pure Custodes all loaded into the Orion Failboat…. no assassins. I won by an a very large margin. Custodes Decided to go first. It went about as expected for Pure Custodes running into a smite spam. He was a great sport about it though.
“My 3-2 troll army became a 5-0 army because of a glorious amount of LOS terrain in the middle of each board, and I was able to outplay/out luck my bad match ups.”
WA: How did you feel at the end of day one, given your positioning? Anything specific you had planned out for your next opponent that morning?
MA: Amazed I went 3-0 with 35 rubrics, and also, based on rankings, scared that I had 50% chance of playing Nick Rose playing a list that all but hard countered mine (GSC with all the character assignation tricks)
WA: Fourth match up?
MA: Deathwatch + 3 Onagers + Crusader + Culexus. I won by a good margin. I decided to go second as Hold more objectives was important in the matchup and he could easily delete anything in LOS. He did a poor job of positioning and the game slowly went in my favor. Deathwatch died to Smites as he didn’t bother to screen them, and I screened out teleporting shenanigans with rubrics. Culexus attempted to solo 10 rubrics on backfield objective but didn’t account for the 4++ and they sat there the rest of the game together in melee. Once the Deathwatch were all but dead there wasn’t anything left to stop a 30 man Tzaangor unit from cleaning up everything. Overall I only won due to very good use of LOS tricks as his firepower was insane.
WA: Fifth match up?
MA: 5 Flyers + double Ynarri spears. Very close game, but I greatly outscored them in the end. This was actually a very poor match up for me as the spears can easily end my entire army in a single turn, and it is extremely hard to screen out AND protect against the flyers. I decided to go first as they deployed 2 flyers within smite range and I really needed to take out his killing power ASAP. I also had to pretty much go for a 50-50 bait/risk. I gave my Warlord Daemon Prince 3++ invul, -1 hit, -1 damage taken Warlord trait, and baited a unit of spear into him. Between doom etc it was about a 50-50 shot to survive, but I had to do it as I needed the spears stuck in the middle of my army to kill them. Worked out with 1 wound remaining!
My second turn was not so lucky and I failed almost every power, and had to throw all 60 tzaangors down at once into chaff as positioning wise it was the only way to survive the 2nd spears and also force them to engage into my smites. Every tzaangor died next turn due to Vect and Morale but it let me pick up the second spear unit as they were stuck in the middle of my army.
It ended up with mostly just a few characters alive on both side in the end. He didn’t make any mistakes beyond getting into the 50-50 bait that he probably thought was a 95-5 his favor.
WA: Final roll up and placing? Having rehashed everything, what are your thoughts now?
MA: Best Overall and Best General. My 3-2 troll army became a 5-0 army because of a glorious amount of LOS terrain in the middle of each board, and I was able to outplay/out luck my bad match ups.
WA: What were some of the best tactics and combos that you saw at the event?
MA: Mine lol. Hide 700 points of Rubrics in buildings for profit! Everything I played against was pretty standard so I wasn’t wowed by anything specific.
WA: What did you think of the mission sets?
MA: Same old ITC stuff. Engineers is really nice when you opponents game the system and you can’t pick any secondaries against them. 10 rubrics is hard to dislodge hiding out of LOS.
WA: What are you planning on changing in your list?
MA: Dropping 20 rubrics to add another Daemon Prince + 30 Tzaangors at some point if I want it to be reasonably competitive instead of a troll list. But that would mean I have to paint 30 more Tzaangors and that sounds awful >.>
WA: What’s next on your schedule?
MA: Alamo GT in Texas
WA: Any parting thoughts for the audience?
MA: Follow your fluffy 40k dreams and bring a butt load of your favorite awful units! Maybe you lose but at least you got to play with your favorite models, or maybe you end up winning and get people to go “WTF is this dumpster list!?”. Have to say stealing Nick Rose’s win out from under him with 35 rubrics makes for a great story! 😀
Matthew Allee stood victorious, having gone undefeated in five rounds with a total of 169 battle points; only two higher than Nick Rose who also went undefeated! The margin of victory matters only so much, then congratulations to Matthew Allee on first place! Philip Junghans also went undefeated with 160 battle points. The list of opponents from there on contains several other heavy hitters from across the United States that arrived last weekend to fight it out. The Dallas Open, while viewed from afar by the Worthiest Adversary, appears to have been quite the memorable event at which many have made recurring attendance. Congratulations to Matthew Allee again on his stellar performance and look forward to more from the Worthiest Adversary as champions of Warhammer 40k continue to arise with every major conflict!
“Pain is temporary; Honor is forever!”
The Worthiest Adversary 