Episode 39: Masterclass with... Murderwing and David from the US!

Meet David: Kill Team Player & Murder Wing Expert Welcome back to the GTR Player Podcast, where the goal is showcasing all of the elements of the game from players and pockets of communities across every corner of the world. Subscribe if you want to stay connected, throw a like if you enjoyed the episode and drop a comment for any suggestions or what you'd like to see next. It helps us out a tonne. Now let's get stuck into today's episode. Players, we are here with a brand new series. Super excited to host Master Class after Faction Framework and level up. We've got a very special guest here today who currently tops the global ITC rankings for Murder Wing. Tell us, who are you? Where in the world is your Kill Team seen and why do you play Kill Team? Speaker 2 So my name is David, I live in North Carolina. I play out of the Greensboro area. My online discord handle is Castellan. You'll occasionally see me on several discords. We currently are playing group is based out of Greensboro, NC and I play for the team called the Gate City Gets and my my competitive scene runs pretty much the whole North Carolina and Virginia greater regional area. Speaker 1 Nice, nice. And and tell us why do you play Kill Team David? Speaker 2 So I started Kill Team about coming up on two years ago, a long time Warhammer player. I got back into the hobby as a game that take less on my back. Looking at a 2 hour game is much easier than a three plus hour big Warhammer game. But I really wanted something that filled that kind of tactical gaming niche that seemed a little more reactive, counter reactive than the I'm going to move my whole army. Then you respond with what's left of your army. So it was the the alternating activations that really appealed to me. Plus being able to work on a smaller number of models and really give them that individuality and personality and kind of helps buy into the story of this is like the last 6 seconds of like a week of planning. And in my mind kind of the narrative and the the storyline closer to it got drew me in. Plus, I'm at the time in North Carolina when I was coming back in and at least at my store, the other games were kind of on the decline, whereas Kill Team was just coming out with the 2024 version. And so that was what everybody was really, really into. So it was really nice for me to have a group of really excited, really motivated players coming into that could help me get into the game and kind of transition my experience playing war games into kill team. So so that and if we're being honest, it's also a lot easier to get in when you've got two kids. It's a little easier time commitment than than a than a big than a, than the full size big hammer is. And I'm sure if I was speaking for my wife, I know she appreciates that, but I also really like the granularity of the rules compared to some of the some of the bigger games my my initial experiences were. There was so much less arguing over things than my previous experience. I'd played. I played Warhammer 40 kid a very high level for a long period of time. And just the, the amount of arguments that I found in that game really had kind of drawn me out of the hobby. But when I got to Kill Team and comparatively for the rules that Games Workshop writes, the the tightness of it and the kind of granularity of it really drew me in as a, as a newer player having previous war game experience. So that really helped bring me in. Plus, like I said, if I'm being real honest, the scene was just so welcoming and accepting compared to some of the other games that I've played that it that they got me in the door and then it was the community that kept me in the door. Speaker 1 100 percent, 100%, definitely. It's definitely more bite sized layered. But to your point, some of that arguing experience might be aligned to the stigma that comes with some of the bigger games, right? Speaker 2 Mm hmm, absolutely. And I, I think, you know, when, when we're playing this game, everything is well, I'm not going to say it's clear, but at the end of the day, it's much more measurable, I think. And that really contributed to my early enjoyment, even though my initial successes were a lot less because you do really have to get into the game and know the rules and kind of master the rules to do really well at this game, especially at a higher level. Even that process was more enjoyable to me than than than previous games and, and going to the tournament scene actually. And that's, that's something I would really recommend to everybody. Like even playing in tournaments as a newer player was still much more relaxing and fun and being able to say, man, I just played three rounds in a single day, I've got another day tomorrow and I don't feel stressed at all. Really, really encouraged me to keep going with the game. Speaker 1 So true, so true. Understanding Murder Wing: A Control Team, Not Elite Durability Well, look, let's get stuck into it because we're here to really get into all that secret sauce and how you've been playing the team, but let's get a little bit of an intro to the faction, right? So with Murder Wing, what do you think is the single biggest trap or misconception you players fall into when they look at an elite team like this? Speaker 2 So Murder Wing, with in regards to being an elite team, it's kind of its own special category within elite teams because one of the key things that most elite teams have is durability, and that's not really our speciality at all. So when you're looking at Murder Wing as a faction, you have to say no matter how I play it, and there are several different ways to play the team, but you're going to have to say I can't just throw my guys into situations that I might throw an Angel to death team into or certainly like a Plague Marines team. We want to really control every engagement we're going into. So we're almost more like, in a lot of ways, we're like the elf team of the elite team world where we want to really control and use our movement to control how we get engagement. So when when you're playing this team or you're thinking about playing this team, no matter how and how you decide you're going to play it, you have to decide how am I going to control the pace, the timing and the direction that the board that everything on the board goes? Because this is really a control team, not AI can just blindly egress. And I'm going to let my stats cover any any weaknesses are flaws. And when I mean stats, I mean our like our wounds are saved. You see a 14 wound model with a three up save and generally your mindsets going to go, Oh, I'm really tough. That'll protect me. That'll cover some of my flaws. And with this team in particular, it's not going to you're going to be in a lot of a world of pain if you're thinking I can play this team like the other elites. So if if I'm going to describe the team in kind of magic settings, we're kind of a we're kind of the blue deck. We're the control of the elite team where we want to control the everything that's going on the board. We don't want to adjust. We're not going to be a red deck aggro. We're going to be a blue control. We have the ability to do things. But if we lose the control and the pace and the tempo of the game, we're going to be in a much more difficult position to come back from. And I'm going to get talk, get into in a little bit about losing. What happens when you start losing guys? Because that by itself is not going to be the end game. But we really need to get out of the mindset of I can throw my guys into situations where I'm going to survive like again, like an angels of death where I can throw one guy up on an on a on a position and know that he's going to have the resistance to probably survive. We have to think about timing. We have to think about The Who, how we're moving our pieces in conjunction with our other pieces because we really have to support our units. We're not so much a team of loan operatives. We're a team of almost pairs or even trios in order to survive. So if you really want to play this team well, we need to, we need to get into how are how am I running this team or how am I going to run this team almost like instead of individuals, but like, how am I going to run my guys together in order to support my my pieces? Because my pieces don't have the staying power of the different teams. And that's fine because we have other strengths that a lot of teams don't have. We're we're one of the fastest team elite teams when you get down to it and being able to move across the board, you can literally move the guy 12 inches, which on a board the size of a kill team is a huge advantage to have, But we have to do it smart. So it is I, I would say it's a higher brain power team. It's not going to be a no thinker team. It's going to be one that you really want to think about and, and plan and have that plan going into the game. But we're kind of counterbalanced by that by by since we are a chaos team, we do have certain advantages over other other teams. Speaker 1 For sure, for sure. And if I had to, if I, if I had to sum it up, sorry, just just so, just so the the listeners get it, they can't be played like a normal elite team. For sure. Optimum play style is control of the board and and based on your experience, the the, I guess the win conditions would be to make sure you're in control. And I think we had Tom from the UK who plays Nemesis Claw and, and I said to him, so these guys play essentially like a pack of jackals, right? Where you've got to control things and chip damage here and there. Would that be a a similar alignment with regards to Nemesis Claw and murdering where you've got to be careful and take the hits where you can? Speaker 2 Yeah, I think in a lot of ways. And then misses Claw and Murder Wing is very much the same where you're going to be playing that KG. I'm going to kind of dictate what engagements I want to get in. But when I'm going, when I do get in, I'm going to jump on you almost like a pack of piranhas. And I'm going to do this huge amount of burst damage that you're going to be sitting there like what just happened. But I want to say in in a lot of ways, I think we're actually a little more advantage than than Nemesis Claw because we have that speed, because we have the the the jump pack ability. We can even, we can pull off even more faints and more kind of realignments on the board than they can. So it it's like they kind of laid the foundation for what we want to do, but we can do it one stage better for sure. And, and we traded some of their strengths for the the jump pack, which I think opens up just a lot more flexibility in being able to play that game style. Speaker 1 Definitely. Auto-Takes and Essential Equipment for Murder Wing Success And tell me when you're when you're looking at it still an elite team. What are you taking for your six most selected operatives? You know who are the auto takes and who you're not leaving home without to to to make make up maybe 70% of your rosters. Speaker 2 Yeah, so my 6th core are going to be the Castlord with lightning claws. He's going to be my choice 90% of the time. Again, I don't think the team is very strong as a shooting team, so I'm not a lot of times going to try to flex into the shooting if I don't need to. I'm going to focus on the team's strength, which is melee. My next most commonly picked guy is going to be the Hunt Master. He's got a lot of abilities. The fact that he has a power weapon, he's got the chain snares that allows me to control the fall back. He also has the ability to even on conceal fly over and do chip damage on a boost. He's one of my biggest tech pieces. My next biggest tech piece is a lot of times is going to be the warp Talon him go again, He's one of our he's very much like the Lord in that he has one of our only reliable sources of re rolls. He's very consistent on his damage output and he's again, a piece that is going to be able to allow you to can kind of control the mental state of the game by the way that he comes in turn 2, you can set turn 1 where he deploys potentially you do have an alternative deployment for him. So he's very much something that I'm going to use on a lot of boards. Then I'm actually going to take the Depredor a lot, and that's where I vary from a lot of people who that becomes a sometimes pick. But for me, he is so reliable as an individual threat piece that I think he's going to be very useful for you later. When we talk about how I run the team in my general play style, champion, or as I call him, the second leader on the team is going to be one of the pieces that I'll take. I'll say about 75% of the time because he does do a, well, good job of operating independently. Mostly I'm going to take him with the power sword about again 75% of the time. But if I'm going to flex into a power fist, he's going to be the one that I flex the power fist into compared to the Lord, He doesn't really lose as much as the Lord does when you're taking the power fist. So if you're looking at a way to take out A8 wound model, he's going to be the one that I give the power fist to. And generally I'll run him with the plasma pistol. He's we can only take two piercing shooting weapons with this team, and he's my usual source of that first one. Next is going to be the sky seer. Again, he's going to be one of the he's less important to my overall game plan. If I'm running elites, I'm going to take him with the melta. I think that if you are playing somebody who doesn't have a lot of reciprocal shooting, if you're playing into like sanctifiers or teams that have much shorter range shooting, I think the plasma is a good choice for that. But I've started recently actually playing with the flamer and as much as I had traditionally, kind of they say the flamer is being a choice. I've recently come to discover that I think that that has some tactical. You said don't rule out the flamer. I wouldn't. If you're looking at how to build the team, I wouldn't necessarily buy a whole box just to build that model. But having it on the having it in my roster is definitely been something that I've been recently exploring. Next, I I would rank the shrieker, and that's certainly something that in North Carolina we're seeing ran more. Him being able to count as or make others count as one less on objective is nice. His, his direct targeted chip damage is useful with the stun and I, and I would say to that, don't even even if another team is immune to stun, don't not take him just because of that. Like him being able to do the D3 damage is still going to be useful for that. Plus he's a space marine with a chainsaw and a bolt pistol, and that's not usually a bad thing to have. And then we, we get into the just the regular standard guys with the, with the bolt pistol and chainsaw. And I'm going to be 100% honest with you, that's not a model that I ever really take. I think there is a edge case to run just the regular Raptors, but I don't think it, again, if we're looking at how you're building the team to take them the most, I would not dedicate a model to it unless you've got the extra models. I'm not going to waste one of the other. I'm not going to not build a specialist to build a Raptor, but if you are going to build a Raptor, I would consider building him with the plasma pistol because you're diversifying your threats. Speaker 1 Nice. Speaker 2 In in the operative selection. Speaker 1 No, that makes total sense and make to boost these guys like what equipment are you giving them to kind of gauge gain the edge in in battle? Speaker 2 So I'm almost always going to take two, I'm almost always going to take two of the equipment from the faction equipment. I'm always going to take clawed armour. I know some people feel like that's not a good thing, but being able to direct a free point of damage that isn't, that isn't stoppable or isn't reducible is such a powerful tool for a team that needs to get every bit of efficiency out of itself. Then I'm going to take the warp fuel because being able to follow up with a charger reposition is such a key piece to this team. Because I really think that being able to tactically hug people and the threat to tactically hug in every intra movement we get out of the board and out of the team is going to benefit you. So I'm always going to take those two in probably again about 90% of my games. There's some edge cases. What you're never going to take though, what you're never going to take is the bladed armour. Yeah, right. Please don't. It's not going to be effective it you're not going to. You're not going to find any usefulness out of it. Now if we're looking at then kind of the standard equipment from the general equipment list, that's going to be map dependent. But it, I'm usually going to take some form of barricade, whether that's lighter heavy, and we'll talk in a little bit about when I'm going to choose that or I'm going to take razor wire because again, that allows me to control the board and control the flow. So my most two, my 2 standard equipments is going to be some form of barricade or razor wire. And that's going to really those boost our strengths while taking our, the, the thing that is our strength movement away from the opponent. There are going to be some edge cases for grenades, especially crack grenades sometimes frag, at least in my meta, because you're probably taking two guys that don't have any base shooting. But I will never sacrifice being able to control the board for a little extra shooting. I don't find it worth it. So those so grenades are going to be an edge case for me. And then smoke grenades are going to be another edge because it allows us to do some pretty bold, some pretty bold plays that again, can be frustrating. Or we can use the smoke to kind of bait out some plays from our opponents. But I generally don't look at stun grenades because we have so much inbuilt stun as in and I I did, I did neglect to mention it. So I do want to go back to one piece of equipment that I will take from our faction, which is the the area stun they did. They did recently nerf it from three inches with no line of sight to two inches. But even still into teams that cannot mitigate stun. Speaker 1 Yeah. Speaker 2 It can be incredibly frustrating to even even be able to threaten, and I've seen people react and try to keep their models spread out just because it's a threat more than it's. Speaker 1 Anything else? Speaker 2 It's an actual yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah for sure. So potentially 33 faction equipment and then 2 standard barricades and or razor wire. And again, in a little bit I'll talk about what what I choose, when I'm, when I'm playing, when I'm looking at the board and choosing what are those I'm going to take. Mastering Volkis: Control Lanes and Strategic Movement Yeah, let's get stuck into that right now, right? So when we're talking about kill zone adaptation, how are you changing your game between open and close quarters? Like how do you see the shifts there? Speaker 2 So first of all, our team is always going to be happiest on open having so much, so many of our abilities and our stratagems rely on either being higher than the floor or being over vantage. So we're always going to be happiest or our standard rate of happiness is going to be on on open. But I actually think we're secretly a powerhouse on on closed. And when I'm looking at clothes, that's where I'm. So when I'm open, I'm going to be thinking, OK, where can I deploy A barricade? I'll use more heavy barricade on that then the light, for example. Because there's so much terrain already available, having two pieces isn't necessarily going to be useful, especially when you know Vantage can take away that light cover. But having a key piece of heavy cover within 4 inches of a an objective, which a lot of the focus maps allow for, gives you the opportunity to be really cheeky with the Warp Talon on. Being able to come in, snatch an objective and then fall back behind heavy cover on Conceal and saying unless you're coming up halfway across the board to get within two inches of me, which is going to pull you out of potential position. I'm getting I'm getting the ability to do retrieve essentially for free. I'm going to play cheekily with I'm going to play cheekily with razor wire, and I'll even put razor wire inside of Volkis buildings. There's several that can create difficulties in. If you can play the razor wire right, it makes it difficult to drop off of certain vantages unless you have the fly ability. It can really be frustrating for people who are having to climb and then reposition or doing the reposition normally to be able to create some landing zone or be able to block out some landing zones in the Vocus buildings that this current season allows for. And that goes back to what I what I've been saying, that we have to control as much of the board as possible. We have to make it as frustrating as possible for them to do what they want. But because we have the advantage of the of the boosted fly, even with certain aspects of it being limited, we can put our models in places on Volkis that other teams have very much difficulty doing turn 1. What I kind of want people to think about though, and this is how I I find a lot of success with the teams on both map, on both sets of maps, is do not try to win all three objectives. If we're, we need to think of the game like a MOBA where they have lanes and there's three lanes on that every map and we must control 2. But if we control 2, we win the game. So what I want you to do is I want you to think about what two lanes can I control with my six guys or five guys and threaten with the the the 6th to win. The other thing that so on focus, remember your lines of sight and I know I'm jumping back and forth. So I'm really going to try to stick on focus for about two more minutes and then I'm going to jump over to end into the dark and close quarters map. Really think about positioning, think about where can I get the most mileage for my movement. Don't feel like on focus that you need to push up hard Turn 1. In fact, I would say you're better off on Volcas specifically, and this changes for other maps. But on Volcas specifically, if you can kind of sit back on turn 1, deploy your equipment effectively to give you the staging areas or to control staging areas like using razor wire to block off certain passages that allow movement onto your centre of the board, and then sit back slightly turn 1, you're going to see the most success. Don't overextend on Volkis turn 1. I see a lot of players try to push up to their Max turn 1 and then you're putting yourself out of position for for following turns. We have the movement, we have the ability, we have that 3 inch additional boost if you need it to get where or extension if you need it to reposition yourself later in the game. But don't feel like on vocal specifically that you need to run up and Max out your movement turn 1. You haven't. Speaker 1 The, the feeling I'm getting is if we had to compare these teams to like boxes, right? This is not a team where you're like Iron Mike Tyson, you're going in and throwing some really big slugs. It's a bit more Floyd Mayweather ish, right? Where you're going in throwing some fluffy punches, a flurry of hits here and there and maybe moving back right. Speaker 2 Yeah, you want to be kind of darting, you want to dart forward, do your damage, do what you want to do and then leave yourself those opportunities to fall back. Instead of like if we're using the the boxing analogy, we're not going to keep falling forward, we're not going to keep pushing forward. We're going to push, but we're going to push in a way on focus specifically. And, and again, this changes for different maps where you want to kind of float and fly backwards and that gets into you want to dance around the board. You don't want to just push yourself out because we don't have that resiliency to be able to take those big haymakers in return. Speaker 1 Yeah, true. And and that that that lets you control the tempo of the game, right. Exactly. Mandate your aggression. Speaker 2 Yes. And tempo control is going to be so important on Volkis. You want to maintain, you want to be able to take out, you want to be able to kind of bait them in to that midline, especially if you're doing things like retrieve. But you don't want them. You don't want to have to fall back all the way across the map and you don't want to have to. You want to kind of keep them at that middle line and say you're coming up to the middle line, but I don't want you in my backfield because if I'm taking something like retrieve, which I will, a lot of times, I want to leave that space where you're now wasting turns getting to me because I didn't I didn't let you aggress, but I'm not aggressing to where I'm having to spend multiple turns falling back out of your territory, if that makes sense. And the other thing that I want people to think about on Volkis is you don't necessarily need to go for their objective early in the game. You don't need to plan on. I got to push on every aggress on every, on every objective super hard. I can leave that till later in the game because again, I have the advantage and movement over a lot of teams. I can send models across the board last turn of the game, for example. So if if we're, if we're thinking like, how am I planning my movement out across the whole game? I don't want you to feel like we have to be making maximum forwards every single turn because it's going to take us every single turn to get there on on focus. For example, when I played Angels, I felt like I always had to be pushing forward because I needed the maximum movement to get across to where I needed because I couldn't really adjust mid game where I needed to go. Once my guys were set, they were pretty much set on their path with especially in focus, where movement is so free for us because we're not having to worry about the things, the doors, the things that we have to worry about on close quarters maps. You can say I'm going to spend 2, maybe 2 1/2 turns focusing on the centre and one side of the board. But because I have such movement, if, as long as my models are still alive, I can threaten the other side of the board at the very end of the game when models for both sides are starting to get a little thinner and resources are getting depleted. Pivoting to Aggression and Murder Wing's Turning Point So let me ask you a question. So if an opponent tries to force you out of your comfort zone, like they rush, they rush you. Like how do you pivot to react to that without breaking a game plan? Speaker 2 So someone who knows how to play against murder wing is going to try to do that because that that takes the the onus of the tempo away from the murder wing player. If I'm playing my number one most commonly used plan, which is retrieve, I am willing to throw. I am going to be willing to throw models away to to to blunt that You have to blunt their aggression, but you can't blunt it with your whole team. So the way that I will often look at it is how many guys am I willing to lose? How many models am I willing to lose? Speaker 1 To Max on retrieve. Speaker 2 To to to Max on retrieve. And what I found over about 150 games is you can lose 3 guys and win the game. Yeah, because we are elites and because we're a six man and because of how the points play, you can lose 3 guys. And with the amount of guys that you're probably going to take back on return, you're still going to win on Retrieve and and those three aren't going to be detrimental to you. Now, ideally, of course you're not going to lose 3, but you have to be OK with losing those three if it means blunting their advance, if it means holding the line, if it means them not getting on your home objective. And also, if they're running things like, for example, Envoy, where they're going to be trying to run somebody and that's, that's a very common tactic you're going to see for players who are taking Envoy, they're going to throw almost their whole team up against you, especially on focus, where again, the the movement is much more open. And I don't, I don't want to say less predictable, but where the lanes are harder, where the lanes of movement are generally harder to, to, to control, expect that they're going to try to push you on Volkis, expect that you're going to have to throw the models. That's where the Deprador comes in handy. Expect to lose those, yes. Speaker 1 Let me ask you a question. Every team in the game has like a a power spike turning point right? Where is it? Where is it for murder wing? Where Like where does it unlock for them? Staging in turning .1 definitely is something that needs to be considered. But are you setting up in turning point 2? Is it a bloodbath in turning point 3 or a clean up in turning .4 where you feel the team comes alive? Given the fact that you're talking about your, your go to his retrieve and you're OK to lose 3 models, how does that look for you? Speaker 2 So on on the retrieve game plan, I'm going to see Turning Point 2 is often going to be the most bloody, especially the the second half of turning .2 going into early turning point 3. And, and, and I'm going to be honest, it's not always a clear, it's not always going to be a clean. This is the I'm going to usually set up to go turning .2. If you're asking where am I going to spend a lot of my command points? When am I throwing the most resources into prepping? It is going to be turning .2. If I'm getting the jump on you. If I'm if I'm saying this is the time where I have to go and I have the opportunity, I'm going to try to start going turning .2. But don't feel bad if it is turning point three, if you've been able to conserve your resources. If they've played cagey, which is what we really want them to do, we want the other team to be a little spooked. We want them to play cagey because if they play cagey, we win. And I can't tell you how many times I've seen that where the turning .1 and turning point 2, the opponent will play KG and then they're trying to play catch up, turning point 3, turning .4 and we're running away. But Ruth spent the resources. I'm spending resources turning point 2IN preparation for that to be a bloodbath. Speaker 1 So, So what like walk us, walk us through that exact bit. So what does good look like leading into turning .2? What pieces do you have in place and what ploys are you popping in that strategic phase to give you that edge? And are you doing any firefight ploys in amongst that turning point 2 or is that more turning point three? Run us through that, mate. Speaker 2 And I'm going to flip over real quick to my app because I want to be able to name them specifically since we're doing teaching. So if you'll give me just a second to open that. Speaker 1 Take your time mate. Speaker 2 And I will say as much as we don't like close quarters, I think it becomes a lot clearer on close quarters when the go, turn, turn is going to be. But one of the. So when we're looking at being aggressive, I'm going to start by using predators above. That gives us our only real source of reroll outside of anybody with claws. It gives us balanced if we boost. If you are, there is no reason that if you're moving, if you're repositioning or you're charging, there's no reason why you should not do a boost action, why you shouldn't boost. And one of the things I want to remind people that often that people don't think about is you can have multiple booths within your movement. They just have to be 1 inch minimum straight line segments. The other thing that you have to kind of remember is if you're changing between boost and regular movement in that you have to be able to replace the model. And if you're changing direction during the boost, it has to be in a place where you can place the model. So you can't do a cheeky pivot over while your model is over another model, an enemy model for example. You would have to either do it before or move over the model to which you'd be able to place your base and then do it. That's an area that seems to be difficult for a lot of people both playing murder Wing, playing against murder Wing. So I just wanted to clarify. But Predators above is going to be your one of your primary aggressive boys that you're going to take when you're setting up for your turn because it's going to give you that reroll. Now we have 5 attacks so pretty much you're going to get what you need, but it's the only way we really have to fix the dice consistently for when we're fighting. Call the week is opportunistic if you're if you're getting the stuns off, if you're getting, if you've already been able to do some chip damage or call the week is one that I will occasionally use, but I would rather save my. CP for other for for. You're always going to want to keep one or two in reserve for some cheeky defensive moves. But if you have an opponent who on turn 2 has taken some chip damage or you were able to get off one of the stun bursts, it does give you that ability to turn the turn the miss into a regular success. If you're getting a crit, you're probably going to get a crit. So it's it's useful to have to fix the dice. One of the number one teams that I will take this into is if I'm playing against Raveners on Volkis, because I'm going to be playing up above a lot. So I'm already going to have that active or the COVID week is going to be active if I'm up above. It really turns your melta gun into a really fearsome weapon. And with them being able to take potentially a double cover save on their tunnel, it's another way to kind of ensure that that's being taken care of. Speaker 1 And tell me in games we know dice can with things don't go according to plan. Can you share an example of where things have gone wrong and you've been able to pivot to have a better outcome? Speaker 2 I will give you an example. I see this happen a lot where, well, I won't say a lot, but it happens at frustrating times where you're Chaos Lord, who should be one of your most reliable pieces. Will will just with even with even with the even with ceaseless, even with the potential balanced, which you know, ceaseless and balanced is relentless. Like still miss four or five of 4 or even 5 of your shots because he's not going to be in a place where he's getting that support. So he's still going to be hitting on threes most times. And then you're stuck there in combat with a guy who's just whiffed a lot of times. It's going to be one of their biggest guys. Now, if you do get a whiff and you've got at least one crit, don't ever be afraid with this team to fall back because we do have long forgotten honour and a lot of times people won't think about blocking out your crip when you whiff like that, unless they're very experienced player. They're going to try to put they're going to get kill hungry a lot of the times and try to go in for damage. So always make sure that you're leaving ACP for that, being a for being able to use long forgotten honour and fall back. Because let me tell you, there's nothing more frustrating for an opponent to think that they've got one of your main units in a place where they're going to get the jump or they're finally going to smack them down and all of a sudden you're running away. That is incredibly useful because once you've fallen back, you know, that gives you the opportunity to put yourself in some cheeky placements. And also that fall back is still a regular fall back. So guess what? You can use it. You can use your boost to ignore vertical distance. So on focus, for example, you can say, oh, I'm falling back. Well guess what, I just fell back to the top of the toss Vulcas ruin and now good luck getting to me. Speaker 1 You've got options. You've got a bunch of options. Speaker 2 You have a bunch of options, and keeping your options open means keeping your models alive, which is more important for us than people might think. On Into the Dark though, I, I want to say you're going to be thinking about playing almost opposite in the way that you play on vocals with these guys where you are going to have to play a more aggressive. Into the Dark, Aggressive Play, and Tactical Operative Combos You do want to kind of threaten the centre of the board quicker, but there's some cheeky places you can do again. So normally the way that I'm going to play on into the Dark or on close quarters compared to open is I'm going to put five of my guys into on the two of the two of the. Speaker 1 Objectives. Speaker 2 Objectives, which will normally be the centre objective and my opponent's home objective usually. Speaker 1 You'll actually, you'll actually rush. You'll actually rush for the opponent's home objective, right? Speaker 2 Yes, because they're going to want to naturally defend it. They're going to put a lot of resources. Now, when I say rush, that might be me just coming up to the door, the halfway with two of my guys and threatening until they move out forward and then you're going to get the jump on them. But even just putting the pressure on them is making them allocate their resources that way. And then this is where I'll use the depredor to stay on my home objective with a cheeky like barricade, for example. So if they're going to come into the room to be able to shoot me, well, guess what? Now we can wings of we can not wings of darkness. Hold on, sorry. Let me that opens up our ability to charge you if you can't end within two inches of movement to kind of counter you coming into that room. So I'm getting a lot of mileage out of the depot door in that example that you're I'm getting a lot of. Speaker 1 Yeah, you're talking about your play style being like a pack of hunting jackals and, you know, doing a bit of a dance and so forth. But you mentioned your friend who also plays and sits at #2 on the ITC charts plays a different way. Can you share some insights with regards to how he plays? Speaker 2 Yeah, and he plays it completely differently. He's going to be high aggression all the time, in your face pushing. He pushes the tempo not through control, but through overwhelming aggression. He's going to throw. He plays and I can't think of the name of the kill OP just as a time out for a second for editing purposes. What's the the one where you get the kills for or you get the tokens for killing the guys is that? Speaker 1 Yeah, dominate, Dominate. Dominate, dominate, dominate. Speaker 2 So so OK, sorry about that. I was having a. Speaker 1 No, that's a gay no, no, no. Me too mate, me too. Speaker 2 So he plays. So he plays it with dominate. Yeah, yeah. Where he's going to score his points by killing you and he's going to be in your face all the time. And that works exceedingly well against people who cannot handle to handle that level of aggression. And that was a way that I played the get it very early on pre nerf as well. So it's a, it's a valid way to play. But he's going to especially on, well, I'm not even going to say especially on any map, on any map, he's going to just run at you and say, here's 6 marine bodies deal with me. And it can be very overwhelming for the opponent when you have 6 marines rushing at you. But his he takes a different load out. He doesn't ever take the Depredor. He doesn't often take the Hunt Master unless he's playing into weaker, weaker bodies. Whereas I take it all the time because I'm like A, it's a power weapon and B, it's still a four up even on one die. That makes people think about how they're going to respond. Speaker 1 Oh, for sure. Speaker 2 But he will often run, you know, he'll always run the melt a gun, he'll always run the warp talent. And he's going to say, oh, I've got the warp talent. I'm going to put it up on the centre line. And then if you come anywhere near that objective, I'm going to use that 4 inches to charge you. Whereas I'm thinking I may not use that 4 inches to charge you. I may use that 4 inch movement that the warp talent has to fall back to do and retrieve and fall back. He's going to go, I'm going to use that 4 inches to charge you. I'm going to set that up as a bubble of a no go because I can dictate when that model comes in. I can wait, kind of bait that objective. And then all of a sudden you are coming in to a model that's just appeared and now he's got a four inch range to charge you. So if you've come in to threaten the centre objective, well now I'm coming in to threaten your models. Speaker 1 And it seems like it seems like the the team's got a lot of good opportunity to stage threats, right, David? But have you got any secret sauce, two or three operative combos that you like running that that really tilts your opponents? Speaker 2 Yes, one of my favourite combos that I like to do and one of the ways that I really want people to think about this team in general is we survived through tactical hugs. And what I, what I mean when I say tactical hugs, for those who don't know, is charging even with the intent not to kill the opponent's model right there or right now, but charging into combat to prevent me from being shot at is the way that I'm going to preserve life. And one of the favourite things that I'll do is one of my favourite combos, and this is on this is especially on Into the Dark and Toon world is to use the hunt Master to lock down one, maybe 2. And I want to take a step back for a second and say a lot of what we do is getting maximum value out of things. So when you're charging people, I don't want you to think that you necessarily have to base to base them. I will get a lot of cheeky double charges by being just within control range of multiple models and people will think that their models are safe. But when you're looking at a 32 or a 40 mil in the example of the Lord base, you can tag a lot of models in control range that people aren't necessarily thinking about. And that's going to be one of the ways that you're going to get maximum value out of it. But a really good combo is on the centre objective on close quarters is to lock someone down within that 4 inches of the objective or 4 inches of the control range of the objective with the hunt master. Wait till later in the in the turn and then bring in your warp Talon, retrieve and then charge. Now you've only got 2 APL when you chart when you come in with the warp Talon. So you're not going to be able to fight, but you don't want to fight. But what you're doing is you're locking another model safely into close combat to prevent yourself being shot. Another variation on that is, is to with the Warp Talon and the heavy barricade, you can actually use you. There's places on Volkis, for example, where you can tag an objective on the very edge of the control range of the objective with your warp town and then be able to fall back to a heavy barricade on conceal, making yourself not be able to necessarily be shot unless they run out of position to run up and shoot you. And if they're running out of position, most weapons aren't going to one shot a marine, but now you're going to get a kill on the on the swipe back for them putting themselves out of position. Another combo that I like to run is, but I won't necessarily call it a combo, but it's a kind of a, it's kind of a head game that you're going to play with your opponent is who you mark for your champions kill ability, because if your champion kills the marked opponent, you get a command point. And a lot of times people are thinking about that and they're like, oh, I don't want to give you more command points because more command points is more gas for us later to do really cheeky things at inopportune times. So I will occasionally mark somebody that's key to their game plan with the Champions token, not with the intent to actually kill that guy that turn, but to make them think about what they're going to do. Because in their mind now I'm going to try to kill that guy with my champion. So now they're going to change what they're going to do because they're thinking I've got some plan in which I'm going to kill that guy. And truth be told, half the time I never intended to kill that specific guy at all with my champion. I just wanted to influence what their decision was with that guy because again, if we're making them change their plans, that's giving us the opportunity to do what we want with our plan. Speaker 1 It's healthy mind games, right? Yeah. Speaker 2 And, and a lot of the extra mileage we're going to get out of this team is the mind games, for example, the Depredor. Depredor is going to make them think about putting their guys, spreading their guys out. You know, we don't have a lot of blast outside of or we don't have any blast outside of grenades. So a lot of times people will get too comfortable thinking, oh, I don't have to worry about spreading my guys out as much because you don't have any blast. Depredor changes that mindset. Now. I've had guys literally spend 20 minutes moving. So everybody is outside of range of the Depredor now. They're wasting their time on their clock. They're spreading their guys out in ways that they may not have wanted because the threat of the Depredor is more than what he he is actually was was planning to do. It's fear mongering. Yeah, exactly. And fear mongering wins you the game. Fear mongering keeps them from being super aggressive to you. And if they're not being aggressive, that's giving you the control. Fear mongering is what gets us this team and that's why we're really always going to be Night Lords at heart. The other another little trick that people don't think about a lot is the defer door does not need to actually be in melee to do his swing. So 1 something that I like to do a lot, especially now with the decrease, and this is against human, human equivalent or elf equivalent model. For example, I'll run the depred door up to get within two, but outside of melee. Speaker 1 Yeah. Speaker 2 Do his spend a win, Yeah, 2. We'll say on average 4 wounds, 'cause that's about average for for the Depador. If I get a six, great, love to see it. But generally I'm expecting to do about 3 to 4 wounds per model. But on an 8 wound or 9 wound model, guess what that puts in threat, makes a threat all of a sudden a bolt pistol. So with the Depredor naturally hitting on fours in close combat, I don't necessarily want to fight with him. But what I'll do is I'll do a cheeky get within two spin, see who's wounded it within threat of a bolt pistol, shoot a bolt pistol at you. And I pulled this off on groups of three or four or even more enemy models where you you're really getting good value. So you're staying on the open. If you do that towards the end of your activations, we're now you're on counteracts. If you, if they leave anybody within less than 3 three inches away from you, you can charge on a counteract you can. If you charge, you're going to boost even though you're only moving through, you know, even though you're only moving to you, you can still use your boost. So now you're doing a clawed armour. So you're getting a damage on the way into someone who may already be wounded. Yeah, now you're in melee, you're back to the tactical hug. So that's that's a that's a combo that people really don't see coming out of a guide that most people have written off after the nerfs that I think still has a lot of tactical play for you. Now, you do have to be prepared. There is a chance they're going to charge you, but if you've already spun and you got even averages on them, there's a really good chance that you're going to kill them on one hit. So I'm I'm not necessarily worried about. Speaker 1 It's a solid surprise. Speaker 2 Yeah. And with him being able to, every time he kills somebody, if someone with is within 3 inches of him or the other of the model that died, another team loses an APL, it can become a cascading effect for you that really brings value out of a model that that most people don't necessarily see all that value in. So that's why he's one of my standard guys, because he can pull off so many tricks like that while still being a generally a good melee threat. Favourable Matchups and Tournament-Winning Advice for Murder Wing Solid. Hey Dave, quick one. So we're we're at the top of the hour just as we're wrapping up bit of a lightning round here. Best teams for matchups against murdering? Who do you love going into? Speaker 2 So I love going into Raveners. I think that's probably one of our easier matchups, especially on Volcas. It's going to be a very quick round no matter who wins. But because we can stay up and we can dictate the flow better than they can, that's usually one that I really love seeing. I also really like seeing. I really like seeing the mirror match. Honestly, the mirror match is a very interesting game for us, but because we have so many tools, if you have just a little bit more experience than the opponent, it's very easy to start to get to come up one model ahead and once you're 1 model ahead, that's pretty much going to be the game. Other teams that I I really like seeing, I like seeing space or I like seeing angels of death. That's, that's, that's a really good matchup for us. And then most human teams, I really like seeing chaos cults because we can ping pong where as a lot of their models aren't super threatening to us. We can ping pong from combat to combat and really dictate the flow there. And tell me. Speaker 1 Who? Who don't you like going into? Speaker 2 Oh, OK, so I don't like, I don't like Felgor just because. Speaker 1 Is it mutual hugging? Speaker 2 Well, it's the mutual hugging. It's plus you have to kill them twice. So even them getting to do any, they'll be able to, even if they've died and they come and they charge you, they're doing more damage to you. And we don't like we don't like any kind of time where we're taking extra damage because we don't have any way to heal ourselves. And that kind of goes into Celestians are also really good at doing chip damage against us. Plus they will often run in pairs. Plus shock with the 44. Their melee is really good into US. Plus they have the ability to heal. And then one team that I am conceptually afraid of. I haven't actually played into them yet, ironically, but I think Plague Marines have a really good game into us because our where we want to be is in melee and their abilities making melee worse just puts us in a bad spot again, because then they have the healer. So there are there are they kind of do a lot of the things we want to be able to do, but just a little better. So I think conceptually that's going to be a team that's really going to be problematic for us. Speaker 1 And mate, before we let you go, what is the number one piece of advice you'd give a player who's taking this team to a tournament in the next couple of weeks? Speaker 2 What I'm going to say is be flexible, but control tempo. If you control the tempo of the game, you're going to win, or at least you're going to have your best chance to win. You want the onus of making the decisions you want and you want to 1st your force your opponents to make decisions that you want them to make. Don't be afraid. Don't be afraid with this team to deny and conversely score low on kill op. We don't need kill op to win the game because if you play the game right, you can almost always except on energy cells. Don't ask how I know that, but with retrieve get Max 9 points on scoring for your tac op and your primary op. So if you know that you're coming in with 9 points base or it's suspect that you'll be able to get the 9 points base, don't worry about keeping the kill op low if it means you can still do what you need to do with retrieve. Don't feel like you have to throw models away to get the kill op, but also think about how you denying your opponent the kill op will win you the game. Speaker 1 Uh huh. OK, that's, that's solid advice, right? It's it's kind of like old faithful advice, you've got to play it safe, control the tempo Max where you can and make sure you can pivot. Mate. Thank you so much. Before we end the show, are there any shout outs you'd like to give? Speaker 2 Yeah, I'd like to shout out the North Carolina scene in general. We are one of the largest competitive scenes in the US. Shout out to my team, the Gate City gets out of Greensboro. If anybody ever happens to be over here, come check us out. We're at the Dragon's Horde in Greensboro, NC, and I just really want to say thank you for giving me this opportunity to come on and talk about the team that I love. Speaker 1 Absolute pleasure, David. I'm sure everybody's walked away with a wealth of information from a much more heightened competitive perspective because you shed so much and the elements, you're obviously very familiar with it. You've played, you said 100 and something games they've made. How many games have you played with Murder Wing? Speaker 2 So Murder Wing is the only team I've played since they came out and just by rough calculations between tournaments, which by the way is almost is about 90 to 5% of all games that I get is in tournaments at this point. Wow, I've played about 150 games with Murder Wing. I keep, I keep thinking that maybe there's something else out there. And then I keep coming back to murder wing because they're, they're just the team that fits right for me. And if you can find a team that fits right for you, you're going to have success with them because it's going to just feel like a natural extension of your own thought process. But I don't want, I don't want people to think that I, I, I would. I just want to say as a final closing thought that a lot of people think that murder wing through some of the drama that was very early on, that we're not a powerful team. But I, I want to say that when you play us correctly, it can be a very back breaking team to play against and it can be a very enjoyable and there's still a lot of depth to the team that has yet to been discovered. I don't think I've discovered all the depths to it yet. So I don't want people to get frustrated by what what they may have heard previously. Play the team, explore the team. I promise you, you're going to have enjoyment doing it. Speaker 1 Awesome mate. Well, David, thank you so much everyone. Thanks for listening. I'm sure you took something away and I sound like a broken record at the end of each episode when I say this, but it's true. We have some amazing guests on the show like David here today and I hope you enjoyed the first episode of Master Class. So join us next time to let your tabletop adventures unfold with all your friends. A good time. Thank you, David. Thank you. Speaker 2 Thank you for having me.