Preface

This article assumes you have basic familiarity with the Warpcoven Kill Team. You can find a detailed introduction here. It is based on the team rules and balance as released - this tournament was played a month after KT2024 was released. Many of the rules mentioned here no longer exist.

I’m trying a written format of Battle Report, in case an enterprising reader feels like analyzing the narrative play by play. I don´t know yet if this format is helpful or clear. I often mention “Tempo” in this article - I will not explain much in this particular article, other than as a mix of multiple notions that mean the opponent is forced to react.

Facing Angels of Death on Volkus Layout 5 Sabotage

I’ll summarise a scenario I played at the final match of a tournament at my friendly Local Game Store. I don’t remember the exact details with full accuracy but it went like this.

I first considered the layout and mission:

• Volkus Layout 5 is extremely shooty, and has the highest vantage accessible from one deployment edge.
• Mission: Sabotage
• I predicted my opponent would go for a mix of assault intercessors and shooty intercessors along the Eliminator.
  • However, Internally, I thought the best choice for an Angels of Death player in this situation is to go heavy on Assault Intercessors and rush me into melee. So I wanted a Kill Team selection with a viable gameplan into this option.
• Angels of Death have a much higher and reliable damage output than Warpcoven.
  • but Warpcoven can trade beneficially if I started shooting early and mounting pressure on TP1
• I wanted to Sabotage the opponent’s home objective. But I didn’t feel pressured to do it early in the game - I merely need a game plan that allows me to sabotage it in TP4.

I didn’t know if my opponent would be aggressive or conservative. If my opponent went heavy on Assault Intercessors and staged forward in TP1, I would be totally overrun on TP2, so I needed to have a plan into that.

Pregame

I won the rolloff - so I took initiative and picked the side with the high vantage (blue deployment) to deny the opponent from putting their nasty eliminator there. This side implied a cascade of decisions. In the parallel world where I’m on the other side, I would have gone 3 Sorcerers, 1 Rubric gunner with Warpflamer, and 4 Tzaangors with plant beacons. I would have done some shooting on TP1 trying to chip away at the eliminator (the Warpfire sorcerer has seek), maybe look for a cheeky Doombolt shot, but mostly using the Tzaangors as first activations to see where the opponent moved. We’ll never know for sure what would have gone down, and I’ll leave the mind palace exercise of that for another time.

Before selecting operatives, I considered what Tac Op might be convenient and noticed the following inconveniences:

• “Secure center” (Security): I had little cover to control the center line
• “Seize ground” (Security): There is little cover to stage an assault on the enemy stronghold
• “Contain” (Security): plenty of open space for an intercessor to run into my side.
• “Plant Beacons” (Recon): little staging area on the left half to prepare operatives to plant beacons in safety. The right side would be cumbersome, forcing me to stage in the stronghold and then scramble out.
• “Confirm Kill” (Recon): if they go heavy on shooty intercessors, it might be hard for me to reach their tokens
• “Recover item” (Recon): too hard.

I considered 3/1/4 and 3/1/2 variants.

• 3/1/4 looked easier for “plant beacons” because I could spread wider and the Tzaangors offer a free mission action on the other side of the table.
  • But given how open the terrain was, I didn’t have many options to keep my Tzaangors safe.
• 3/2/2 allows me to bring more shooting to the table but all Tac Ops become harder

Ultimately, I decided for 3/2/2. I curbed my instincts for early for ultraviolence, knowing that for once I would have to play a conservative TP1. Here are my operative selections, with a small abbreviation so you can later see where each one got deployed

• (T) Tempyrion sorcerer with Master of the Immaterium and Khopesh
• (D) Destiny Sorcerer with Immaterial Flight and Khopesh
• (W) Warpfire Sorcerer with Astral Bombardment and Warpflame pistol
• (RS) Rubric Gunner with Soulreaper Cannon
• (RW) Rubric Gunner with Warpflamer
• (TS) Tzaangor Warrior with Shield
• (TI) Tzaangor Icon Bearer I picked the Tzaangor with Shield as a hedge in case the opponent picked lots of Assault Intercessors, and the Rubric Warpflamer to be able to clean up any of those assaulting my stronghold. If my opponent went for a balanced build, I would be able to out-trade them with the right timing.

As equipment choices, I went for Sorcerous Scroll, Arcane Robes, Smoke Grenades, and Ladders. I don´t remember the opponent’s choices exactly, but he took kraks.

I placed one ladder in the corner of the middle ruin, and another on the edge of the vantage. Then we proceeded to deployment which ended up like so (circles not at scale, drawn larger for visibility):

• The Warpfire Sorcerer (W), on the leftmost corner of the left ruins, had a wide view of the map to better threaten with his seek weapons.
• The Tempyrion Sorcerer (S) was on the right corner of the middle ruins. The point was to maximize the impact of the 9’’ range on his psychic abilities.
• The Destiny Sorcerer (D) was behind the stronghold, ready to fly up, and potentially take the vantage on the opponent’s side to gain better map control. By TP3, it could threaten the opponent’s Stronghold vantage if I needed.s
• The Rubric Soulreaper Cannon (S) staged by the ladder.
• The Rubric Warpflamer was by the wall. My plan was for it to protect the Stronghold.

The opponent deployed like so:

• The opponent’s Captain (C) and Eliminator (E) were behind the stronghold, with the Assault Intercessor Grenadier on their side.
• By the ruin on the other side, an Assault Intercessor Warrior (AI), an Intercessor Gunner (IG) and an Intercessor Warrior (I) were deployed.

I chose “Contain” because I wanted to use all of my action economy for aggression - if the opponent wanted to deny it, given their deployment, they would have to press forward through a very open killing ground and I thought I could manage to make it a very costly endeavor. Whatever scoring I missed on the Tac Op, I would make up for in the Kill Op - so much so that I almost chose that as my Primary.

At Scouting, I went for Reposition so that I could put the Rubric SRC on the high vantage.

TP1

I picked Tac Op as primary. Neither of us played any Strategic Ploys.

I resorted to playing it cool. Alternating with my opponent, my first activations were passing with my Tzaangors (TS, TI). Then I moved the Rubric Warpflamer (RW) into the stronghold, so that it would be barely touching the objective control range while as much in cover as possible. Then the Destiny Sorcerer (D) flew up the stronghold first vantage and cast “Protected by fate” into the Rubric Soul Reaper Cannon (RS).

Then, the opponent moved the Eliminator onto the vantage. I activated my Warpfire Sorcerer (S) and targeted the Eliminator (E) with Alight (all my attack dice could be rerolled), then Mindburn, then Firestorm. I had a small misplay: I used Sorcerous Scroll to get Incorporeal Sight because I thought the walls on the Stronghold granted obscuring - which is not true. Heavy terrain attached to the vantage don´t count for obscuring. Anyway, the rolls were poor even with Alight, given the Eliminator’s ability to retain two saves, but I got some chip damage in. Then I played “Capricious Plan” to switch back to conceal. My Tempyrion Sorcerer cast “Temporal Flux” on the Destiny Sorcerer and passed.

The opponent staged with the rest of their activations so that the table looked like so:

TP2

The opponent won the rolloff and gave me initiative. The big decision I had to make for that turn was how to set up favorable trades. One option was to open with the Warpfire Sorcerer to cast “Alight” and “Mindburn” on the few visible targets and then “Capricious Plan” back into safety and follow up with aggressive actions on every activations to keep the tempo up. (Aside: in retrospect, I think this would have been the best course of action after seeing my opponent’s activations, but I was also suspecting my opponent might be tempted to play cagey so I wasn’t sure to drop CP into aggressive Strategic Ploys and then waste them).

So instead I leant onto my activation advantage. I would activate my Tzaangors first, and my Rubrics, reserving my Sorcerers for the end. I didn’t want this to cost my Rubrics so I had to invest in defense. I only played the “Aetherial Warding” Strategic Ploy to reduce the opponent’s Piercing, and use “All is Dust” judiciously. The risk is I might have to activate my Tempyrion Sorcerer earlier than I wanted to heal the Rubric before having a good play available.

My first activation consisted in me moving my Tzaangor Icon Bearer (TI) into the heavy cover by the center objective. The opponent passed with the Intercessor warrior on the Stronghold. Then I moved my Tzaangor with Shield (TS) into the heavy cover within 3’’ of the Tzaangor Icon Bearer but outside of 2’’ to avoid a frag from the Assault intercessor Grenadier (AIG).

My opponent then activated the Assault Intercessor Grenadier (AIG) that moved out of the stronghold and chucked a Krak grenade at the Tzaangor with Shield (TS). The Tzaangor saved well and took two normal hits, with reduced damage from the Tzaangor Icon (TI), so it was down 3 wounds left. Then the opponent dropped a smoke grenade on itself. I certainly didn’t expect this play, although in retrospect it was the opponent’s optimal play so I should have seen it coming.

I activated my Rubric Soul Reaper Cannon (RS) to shoot at the Assault Intercessor Grenadier twice. Again I had poor rolls, and did only 4 damage from a single hit. The Soul Reaper Cannon often gets good results with Accurate 2 against smoke grenades, but not this time. I didn’t feel bad since I was using that gunner as a lightning rod anyway, trusting on the favorable statistics of retaining one cover save, rolling 2 die on 2+, with rerolls, and “All is dust” ready to go.

The opponent activated the Intercessor Gunner (IG), climbed on the ruin’s vantage, and shot at my Rubric twice with the krak grenade and the bolt rifle. Only one normal hit went through (with 1 additional damage since I used “all is dust”). I was hoping for the opponent to expose that gunner, as it was a big part of why I sunk a CP into “Aetherial Warding”.

Then I activated my Warpfire Sorcerer (W), cast Alight on the Intercesor Gunner (IG) on the vantage on the right, and Firestorm for some considerable damage. Then I cast “Mindburn” on the Assault intercessor (AI) on the right side, getting some chip damage and putting the mindburn token on it. I left the sorcerer in safety again by using “Capricious Plan” to change my order into conceal. Bear in mind it is typically not advisable to use attacks on enemy operatives that have already activated since it hurts your action economy - it is better to try to kill operatives that haven’t got the chance to contribute to the turn yet. I was ok with this because I didn’t expect the Warpfire Sorcerer to kill a marine in one go, this merely allowed me to set up the kill on the Intercessor Gunner (IG) while debuffing the Assault Intercessor before it got the chance to hit.

The opponent then activated that Assault Intercessor (AI) and repositioned against my stronghold’s wall to attack my Rubric Warpflamer. He took a shot with the pistol and a krak grenade, but given the mindburn token and my rubric’s 2+ saves and piercing reduction, only one normal hit went through.

I didn’t have a lot of good targets yet. I hadn´t yet found a good tempo advantage, although I was confident that the overall trades would be favorable. I decided to activate my Rubric Warpflamer to retaliate against the Assault Intercessor that just went and shot twice, killing him. The upside is the opponent wouldn’t get a counteraction so far as I killed operatives that had already activated - in a way, I was still leveraging activation advantage.

The opponent activated the Eliminator, that went on engage, then dashed forward into another window to get a line of sight into my Rubric Soul Reaper Cannon and Tzaangor Shield bearer. With a pistol shot the Tzaangor Shield (TS) went down, and the Sniper Rifle did reasonable damage into the Rubric. I think the opponent took this risk because of their trade disadvantage - but I think this was the moment when I secured the upper hand. At this point, the opponent had exposed valuable operatives and had few tactical options left. I would be able to remove choices from them.

I had a key choice now: I could either:

1. activate the Tempyrion Sorcerer (T) to heal the Rubric and shoot the Eliminator, so that the Destiny Sorcerer (D) would be able to threaten the enemy captain
2. activate the Destiny Sorcerer to secure the kill on the wounded Intercessor Gunner, so that this incentivizes the Captain to go for a big play to kill and score in the center objective

“Option 1” meant that I potentially got better scoring, but I went for “Option 2” because this meant that I would have total control in TP3, and even if I lost initiative, I would have multiple targets available to keep the trade balance. Then I activated my Destiny Sorcerer that cast doombolt on the Intercessor Gunner, and with Alight, incapacitated it. Then I cast “Protected by fate” again on the Rubric Soul reaper cannon and passed.

The opponent activated the Captain that moved forward towards the center and shot hot plasma at the Tzaangor Icon that survived. Had the Tzaangor died, the opponent still had an avenue to victory if they had initiative in TP3. My Tempyrion Sorcerer had no business in a fisticuff exchange with that model. But given that the Tzaangor Icon survived, and it counted as APL 3 for objective control, the opponent wouldn´t score that objective, and would have to waste time with the Tzaangor to score it if they so wanted in TP3. It meant very unfavorable action economy for the opponent.

I activated my Tempyrion Sorcerer, healed the rubric for 4 wounds, activated Temporal Flux again on the Destiny Sorcerer, and moved to the left to be closer to the Warpfire Sorcerer given the upcoming advance of the Assault Intercessor Grenadier. I chose not to get chip damage on the Eliminator and stay on conceal, to have the choice to counterpunch the offense I expected from the assault Intercessor, or preempt it, from safety.

We were both done, and it was going well for me. The opponent had lost the two operatives on the right flank, with some chip damage in the Assault Intercessor Grenadier and the Eliminator. Aetherial Warding did good work, given that my opponent got lots of 6’s on their Piercing Crits shots and the Kraks. Nobody controlled the centerpoint.

I revealed Contain and scored only 1, whereas my opponent revealed Contain too and scored 2. Scoring ended like so:

The scoring was close but I was confident I had plenty of valuable options regardless of whether I had initiative in TP3 or not. The dice would have to be extremely unkind to me for the opponent to come back.

TP3

I won the rolloff and took initiative. I had only 2 CP left. I played “Aetherial Warding” and “Brotherhood of Sorcerers” because I wanted ceaseless on the Warpfire Sorcerer with Staff because I expected it would be charged early, and at least balanced in the rest of psychic weapons is good enough so that I didn’t need to cast Alight.

My first activation was the Warpfire Sorcerer. I moved to the right corner of the ruins, to get obscuring from the Eliminator and gain ceaseless from procimity to Tempyrion. I cast Mindburn into the Captain and Firestorm into the Eliminator with ceaseless, getting mindburn into the captain and good chip damage to both.

I think my opponent started feeling the pressure of my trading advantage and went for a risky play with the Assault Intercessor Grenadier in the smoke. The opponent charged both the Warpfire Sorcerer and Tempyrion Sorcerer, going for at least one kill and potentially lots of damage on the other. Up to this point, I didn’t see anything inherently wrong with his previous plays given the state of the board, but I was convinced this was the wrong choice for them given I would have combat support on top of ceaseless. He first fought the Warpfire sorcerer, that has only a Staff. The Assault Intercessor got 3 normal hits, and via ceaseless and combat support, I got 3 normals and a crit. The sequence went like this:

• opponent double parried with duellist
• I struck with a crit and removed one of their normals with shock
• Opponent parried so I was out of dice The Assault Grenadier was down to 4 Wounds, and my Warpfire Sorcerer down to 10. At this point, it was highly unlikely the Assault Intercessor could survive, much less kill the Sorcerer. My opponent decided for a martingale and fought again. I got 3 hits which meant he couldn´t survive, and the combat ended with the Assault intercessor dead, and the Warpfire Sorcerer on 6 wounds.

Then I activated my Destiny Sorcerer. The first action was casting Doombolt at the Captain - combined with Balanced (from Brotherhood of Sorcerers) and the chip damage, it was incapacitated. Then I flew to the opposing ruins and cast “Ravage Destiny” on the Eliminator so that he would have to reroll all 6’s - and with Temporal Flux, returned to my original position.

Then the opponent activated the Eliminator, switched to conceal, and shot the Rubric Soulreaper Cannon for moderate damage. The Rubric was around 6 wounds but Id on´t really remember.

I moved the Tzaangor Icon bearer into the opponent’s side to deny 1 point of contain while still controlling the center objective, and forcing their hand to activate their last Intercessor Warrior (I) on the stronghold. So he did, and shot at the Rubric Soulreaper Cannon (RS) twice to make it return to dust.

I passed with Rubric Warpflamer. The opponent then counteracted with their Intercessor Warrior (I), taking a shot at the Warpfire Sorcerer in obscuring to no effect.

Then I activated the Tempyrion Sorcerer (T) that healed the Warpfire Sorcerer (S) for 4, bringing it up to 10. Then the Tempyrion Sorcerer repositioned forward behind the light cover, and cast Temporal Flux at the Intercessor (I) getting 7 damage in. That Intercessor was down to 7.

The scoring was still close, but I had overwhelming activation advantage and damage potential for TP4. Even if the opponent had insane rolls, I had the tools and operatives to outscore them.

TP4

By this point, the game was pretty much decided. I won the initiative again. I didn’t play any Strategy Ploys to keep my sole CP.

I activated the Tempyrion Sorcerer (T) first. I used “Psychic Cabal” to borrow “Mindburn”, which I cast at the Eliminator (E) getting some additional damage and the mindburn token in, although it became heavily injured so it didn’t matter. Then I charged the Intercessor Warrior (I) and killed it in melee.

Then the opponent activated the Eliminator and shot at the Tempyrion Sorcerer with the sniper rifle and pistol, trying to get the next level of the Kill Op avenge the Emperor, but didn’t kill it.

Then I activated the Warpfire sorcerer and with a last mindburn killed the Eliminator, tabling the opponent.

We both revealed Tac Op as primary.

Conclusions

The key to my victory in this game was that I prioritized the following factors in order:

• I prioritized acquiring control of the Tempo, prioritizing trading advantages compared to defensive plays.
• I factored passive defenses and resilience such as budgeting for Aetherial Warding, All is Dust, and Capricious Plan. I used semi-active defenses like Mindburn on what I thought were the opponent’s early activation, and “Ravage Destiny” on the Eliminator to decrease the likelihood of crits.
  • Aethereal Warding paid off given how many crits my opponent got and the kraks.
• Used high reliability shots (e.g. starting with Warpfire Sorcerer to cast Alight) early in the TP
• Using Capricious Plan and Obscuring so that only the Rubrics and Tzaangors were viable targets early in the TP

I achieved my goal of Tempo Control by removing options from my opponent in the later half of TP2.

I also kept my cool when the Rubric Soulreaper Cannon, which typically is the shining star on Volkus, failed miserably. Alas, dice results were dust.

I think the only significant risk I took was exposing the Tempyrion Sorcerer on TP3. I didn’t think it would affect the outcome other than reducing the scoring difference. I tried to prevent the opponent from saturating me with threats, which can make Warpcoven crumble like, at the risk of being reiterative, proverbial dust. All of the other risks that came up were not critical and had options for course correction.

I also think I factored what would happen had I lost initiative. I made sure to offer few targets, and hard to get value from, on TP2 and TP3. I would have been able to be even more aggressive with the additional CP while also having higher activation advantage. Taking a step back: I almost always want my opponent to go first in TP2, and more often than not in TP3, because I’m typically able to enact higher volumes of violence. Going first, however, goes often like in this game, where I focus on seizing the tempo.

Warpcoven connoisseurs might be revolted to have come this far and seeing not a single mention of “Fate itself is my weapon” (the Strategy Ploy that allows Warpcoven to replace their dice or their opponents’). To that kind of players, I have only a whimsical (but complicitly friendly) chuckle to offer as sole response.