The ATC (Australia and New Zealand Team Championship) has come to an end for another year, I had the privilege of leading Team Queensland to their 6th Victory in just seven years, for me this was my 6th time heading into the ATC with a number of those years as captain or being the head of the strategy team conducting pairings and building the team line up, for me this event was important to attempt to achieve a personal goal in maintaining a flawless team performance at all 6 events I have attended and I am proud to say that we most definitely got the job done! I'm very proud of all my team mates and very appreciative of the time and effort they all put in over the last few months to get ready for this and all I can say is results speak louder than words, so congratulations to all the lads involved with Team Queensland and a massive thank you to all of our opponents for giving us great games!
Now we'll get stuck into what you're really here for!
for those of you that haven't seen the list yet, this is what I settled on for the event, I am a strong believer that Rusted Claw is by far the strongest build GSC can put on the table in the current meta, you just have an answer to anything your opponent can throw at you and it doesn't lean on forcing positioning mistakes to be able to get in behind them to dig out some of the more potent MSU melee lists kicking around at the moment.
Patriarch (warlord)
- Entropic Touch, The Nomads Mantle
- Psychic Stimulus, psionic blast, inescapable decay
Jakal Alphus
Primus
5x Accolytes, 2x demo charge, cult lash whip
5x Accolytes, 2x demo charge, cult lash whip
5x Accolytes, 2x demo charge, cult lash whip
5x Accolytes, 2x demo charge, cult lash whip
10x Accolytes, 9 hand flamers, 2 demo charge - Lying in Wait
20x Neophytes, 4x seismic cannons, 4x webbers, cult icon, shotguns
20x Neophytes, 4x seismic cannons, 4x webbers, cult icon, shotguns
8x Purestrains
Kelermorph
Nexos - Cranial Inlay
Sanctus - Cult sniper
Saboteur - opressors bane
4x Jakals, 3x demo charge, - They Came from Below
Rockgrinder, heavy seismic, demo cache
Rockgrinder, heavy seismic, demo cache
Rockgrinder, heavy seismic, demo cache
Truck, demo cache - From every Angle
Truck, demo cache
So firstly I'll touch on a few things this list has that differ from the more standard Myriad Truck list and I'll briefly go into how the list functions and why it works with great success.
Lets start with the stand out inclusion, The Jakal Alphus, I've had a number of people ask me " why on earth are you running it!?" Honestly since I picked up the army I've always had a chuckle at the unit as I didn't think it synergised with the army well enough and didn't have a place in any of the older lists, but as I dove deeper into Rusted Claw and experimented with different ways to play the list less and less of the army was starting off the table and in most games majority of the units were starting on the table which seems insane for a GSC player to say! That reason is exactly why the Alphus makes so much sense in the list and really just enables the neos to do damage from annoying positions on the table, this has an on flowing effect in not having to sacrifice units to line up avenues of exposed to bring the damage to the level it needs to be, which at times can be really difficult against lists on dense tables or against things like infiltrators. I'm sure any GSC players reading this will have had at least one experience where their opponent makes a serious effort to zone out any deep striking units and prevent you from getting your exposed on the units you're really seeking it on, for me the Alphus was an easy solution to the problem and really helped in the Chaos Knight match up which I ran into round one of this event on Data scry.
Next on the list is the 4 man jakal unit, If you've played GSC lately you've probably been running a number of jakals, all I can say is if you like them as myriad you will LOVE them as Rusted Claw! They are genuinely ridiculous in this sort of army and the threat they add is something you just cannot get elsewhere, the reason for this is the ability to throw the demo charge in the movement phase from out of line of sight, I cannot stress enough how valuable it is to be able to pick on staging melee units from behind a wall, you can run this unit without came from below but in my mind the upgrade is what makes the unit, being able to utilise the pre game move from the blip if you're going first makes it really hard to defend against but also holds its value if you have the bottom of turn being able to angle your pre game move to project this threat from safety after you've seen how your opponent decides to approach the game from their movement phase, on top of that the unit brings a massive threat that they have to respect during deployment and it very easily capitalises on any positioning mistakes they make giving you crucial move blocks and completely weakening a flank with very minimal commitment.
Last but not Least, and most definitely my favourite unit in this entire list... The Patriarch. I am in love with what this guy does for the list that you just can't run in any other form of GSC, it's really hard to see how big of an impact it really has without putting it to use on the table top and watch your opponent squirm at the threat he brings! For those of you that are unfamiliar, The Nomads Mantle enables him to move. advance and charge through models and terrain, now on a model that can auto advance 6" out of a truck launching himself 17" from a vehicle you've postured up relatively aggressively is an absolute nightmare to protect yourself from, particularly when they are also trying to hide from the shooting in the list that takes advantage of creating firing lanes with its speed through the advance and shoot mechanic in the list, The patriarch also packs the ability to spike up something fierce on his damage with the warlord trait to generate 2 additional hits on a roll of a 6, but more importantly giving him ap -4 all the time which is back breaking in a number of games. Personally I've found it irritating to deal with little smashy characters in opponents list in the past along with things like 9 mortars being insulated by a competent guard player and this one model makes doing that a living nightmare, in my mind it brings a threat to the table that is incredibly awkward to play around against an army that is already so hard to combat.
All in all this has been my favourite and in my opinion my strongest version of all the GSC lists I've run over the last two years, that's not to say I no longer rate the other builds but going into any event I believe this gives you the most play into absolutely any match up and has the ability to come out the other side.
After a Two year grind on this faction, bringing it from Zero to Hero in the lead up to WTC I'm going to close the door on this one, over 10 events with a track record of more than 50+ undefeated tournament games with GSC it's been a good run and I have achieved more than I could have hoped for, now we wait for 10th edition, but for all my Tyranid loving followers, I've got exciting things to come for all of you, for everyone sticking to the GSC grind I wish you all the best! If you like this content and would love to see more, Hit the like button on Facebook and check out the Patreon!
