So I know this one is a little late, but just over a week ago we had the ANZ 40k Team Championships, where for the most part the top 8 players from each state band together with months of prep like list design, team line ups and pairing strategies to battle it out for the title of Australian Champions. The ANZ 40k Team Championships is hands down the best event I have ever attended, and not just for the games, but the build up and coming together as a team is a great experience, discussing strategies over team dinners/meetings is what really makes this event so great. Catching up with all the interstate boys for a few beers is what separates this tournament from any other regular local event you could attend.
After QLD's three year winning streak was ended by Victoria last year we felt like we had a point to prove. With all of our heavy hitters now back in the loop we had planned from the start to come out swinging. We decided to go a little off meta with our line up and stacking fairly heavily on the multi wound/ toughness 8 line up with one horde army to keep the other states on their toes when it came to pairings. This certainly worked fairly well as most rounds each team quickly ran out of resources to right all our toughness 8 lists. (repulsors with G man, plague burst crawlers with mortarion, Knights + bulgryns. meganobs + lootas)
For those of you who don't already know what I ran at this event Hivefleet Cuck re surfaced, this was definitely the right call from a team perspective, not only because of the strength of the army and how difficult it can be to handle, but players from all other states knowing the success it has had and just genuinely being concerned about pairing into it.
We finished day one in a commanding lead with some huge battle point wins in round 1 and 2, this really put the pressure on the other teams who could not just sneak in a draw against us but now had no choice but to try and secure the win. Because of this, going into round 5 against Western Australia, we knew if we were all to play conservative we couldn't lose the event. Round 5 was really coming down to the wire until a few of the last games swung pretty heavily in our favour and we were able to run away with it. A massive congratulations to WA though, this was their best ATC showing to date, we knew coming into this one that there were going to be the team to beat but I stood by the QLD boys and backed them to pull through and take back the throne.
This event summed up another untouchable run for the Hivefleet, before ATC I was certainly having doubts in the bugs within the meta game but this was definitely to reassure myself on the army. What does this mean moving forward for the Hivefleet?
Expect them to make a return through the bottom end of the 2019 tournament season, possibly going down a very different path. If I can make this secret list work at 1500 points, expect to see this one make its debut at Winter Warfest.
