September RTT Tournament Report: Game One with Houndpack Lance
Recently, I attended my local club’s monthly RTT. Three great games, three great opponents—and plenty of lessons learned!
In my last post, I mentioned that going 2–1 was my goal, but more importantly, I was there to learn and improve. Today, let’s dive into Game One.
Opponent & Mission
Faction: Adeptus Custodes (Shield Host)
Mission: Hidden Supplies
Deployment: Search and Destroy (UKTC terrain)
Opponent’s List
Trajann Valoris
3x Blade Champions
3x5 Wardens
5x Guard Squad
3x2 Allarus Terminators
Calidus Assassin
1x4 Witchseekers
Game Plan
On Hidden Supplies, the mid-board is very open. With two objectives sitting there, it’s tempting to rush—but that’s exactly where Custodes excel.
My plan was to:
Play around the flanks and avoid the middle early.
Force Custodes to split, then punish overextensions with shooting and Wardog trades in combat.
Stay resource-efficient and passive, waiting for the right moment to collapse on isolated units.
Early Game
I won the roll-off and went first.
I scouted up the flanks, grabbing two objectives—top left and bottom right. This immediately pressured my opponent to commit.
A Blade Champion squad pushed toward my bottom-right objective, but after a rough pair of advance rolls (1 into 1!), my opponent pulled them back into a ruin instead.
That meant he conceded the top-left and bottom right objective as well.
On Turn 2, I secured a full 15 points on primary, while my opponent scored zero.
A massive early swing, going first.
Mid Game
Turn 2, my opponent finally committed, sending Blade Champions into the objectives I held.
That was the opening I was waiting for. I threw in multiple Wardogs, combining shooting and melee pressure to overwhelm that Warden unit.
Even with 4+ Feel No Pain active, I was able to burn down both Warden units by the end of the turn.
This forced my opponent into an all-in counterattack, committing nearly his entire army to try and claw objectives back.
But by that point, I had the momentum and tempo firmly in hand.
Late Game
With Custodes overcommitted and depleted, I out-traded them piece by piece.
By the closing turns, my Wardogs were swarming the board, controlling objectives, and racking up points while Custodes struggled to respond.
Final score: 76:44 win! —a big win to kick off the event.
Takeaways
Patience paid off. Playing the flanks and forcing my opponent into awkward moves let me dictate engagements.
Primary scoring is king. Getting 15–0 on Turn 2 created an advantage that snowballed.
Custodes durability can be cracked. Multiple layers of pressure (shooting + melee) negated the 4+++ Feel no pain.
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