Today we're gonna talk about building a Pestilens list that can handle a standard 5 game, two day tournament event. There's a lot of considerations to take into account, and you aren't going to get it right the first time. Me personally, I had to get my ass handed to me in no less than four consecutive tournaments before I started doing well. So lets get onto it.

Threat Management

Can you deal with the common threats of the game? Are you ready to get turn 1 charged? Are you able to face a list that doesn't place a single model in deployment then appears all around you and within you? The good news is yes, you have access to these tools. Almost as a given you'll have a lot of bodies (If you're playing 2k games and have less than 90 models I will reach through this screen and trottle you degenerate Plague Priest) and lots of bodies are how we deal with this. Turn 1 charge? Ok, heres a line of monks the length of the table, and another line 3 inches behind it to immediately countercharge after the first line is wiped and immediately erase the enemy army. Deep Strike list? Neat, try and find an area NOT within 9 inches of a rat after leaving us turn 1 and we run our troops and spread them maximum cohesion across two thirds of the table. Deal with that Clan Skryre you heretics. Your army only has 6 different warscrolls oh faithful follower of the plague, so it's time to start learning what the wascrolls everyone else uses. Learn their strengths, their weaknesses, and exploit both.

Being a Threat

A good friend of mine who has won more games than I've painted monks likes to say, can you reach out and touch your opponent? Now he doesn't mean literally, though a future article will indeed cover poisons that can be ingested through the skin to be smeared on sticks. What he means is can you make your opponent feel threated at all stages of the game? Can you make them hesistate and stumble rather than charge confidently forward? Again, the answer is yes. Sadly you're at a tournament, so the opponent knows that line of dimminutive weak looking robed rats will absolutely ruin their day given half a chance ad won't underestimate them, but we can exploit this. Waste a few rats on charging forward erratically at the enemy, it will really freak them out. They won't want to come within 12 inches of them and this is exploitable. The big question however is, can you strike them in all turns and phases in some way? Only one concern jumps to mind, Turn 1 Battle Round 1. Pestilens have no reach, and no real way to guarantee a turn 1 charge. We have a catapult, but it mostly isn't great. So your choice is to take a catapult, or ally in something else. Consider Gutter Runners, an Arch Warlock or Warplock Jezzails.

Know when to hold em, know when to fold em

So you're matched with a hard counter. It's never fun watching the Tzeentch player deploy Skyfires or Bonesplitterz player sifting through his models with a shovel trying to find that last Arrow boy. Don't give up however, generalship is everything and when the warscrolls fail you, you have psychological plays. If you approach a game feeling already beaten your opponent will pick up on it and play all the harder (some say Tzeentch players can smell poor resistance to shooting). If they clip your wings and you can't win objectively, don't fold. Don't pack up your models prematurely. They immediately get full kill points, and you lose the chance to score more. Do your best to score a minor defeat, not a major, which are still worth something and therefore money in the bank, and failing that... Take every damn model off them you can, play to the last rat. Get every kill point you can, these can push you up the rankings in the event of ties and are not to be underestimated.

Have Fun

Yeah it's cheesy but ****** it, at the end of the day you're spending a small fortune and considerable time painting for fun, and you should have just as much fun playing the game. Don't play where the only way to have fun is to win, play to enjoy your army and learn to be better. Accept that you can lose and push forward anyway, because the win you didn't expect is a win more treasured.