I am back from a fantastic weekend at the Wet Coast GT, where 40 players duked it out to win one of the first 8th edition GT tournaments in North American. The results for this 1650 point 6 round event, demonstrates an evolving player base, as Orks took the top spot, along Tau and Eldar coming in 2nd and 3rd. Before we get to the lists, let me take a second to talk about my experience.

I accomplished my goal of going 4-2 with an all Terminator Flyer list and was on the final table against the eventual winner, though my best possible placing was most likely 2nd even if I had won. I ended up 10th overall, which was great for my first 8th event. The games were super fast, only my first game went the full two hour round length. As for the games themselves only two of the six felt competitive, and one being problematic due to my opponents lame behavior. I went first in three of six of the games with my two loses coming from being seized on. Those two loses were super lopsided because of it, likewise two of my wins were lopsided as well. The best game I had was when I choose to go first against a player with a mostly limited ranged army.

What this tells me, something many players are experiencing, is going first is a huge advantage most opposing armies cannot overcome. Calls to change to 8th like who goes first, progressive missions, and LOS terrain seem like only patches to what might be ultimately a core game mechanic problem. Sadly, some 7th edition rules injection might be needed, like a Night Fight rule, point reductions for defensive multiplier units, and a return of firing arcs could be enough to fix a lot of problems.

One thing is certain, parts of the playtesting process for the game didn’t account for certain variables, as noticed by the playtesting tournament community moving quickly to change missions and going first mechanics, even after initial calls for no changes when the hype train was at full steam.

Even with that said it was great to see players adjust in this event to counter things like full flyer lists. It did seem to require taking your own Flyers, but a balanced combination that can control the board helps even more. The key with defeating flyers is taking out the weaker flyers first to quickly reduce damage output as fast as you can.

Here are the lists that demonstrated you don’t need only flyers to win a place in the top 3 of a major event.

Finally, the Wet Coast team took are all the picture taking for me with, a great photo album of over 190 photo showcasing models from all the events.

Wet Coast 2017 Photo Album

The BAO is coming up in three weeks! I have two more RTT before then to hone my skills, so it will be interesting to see just how far the meta moves from now until then!