THE WINNER OF THE ALLIANCE OPEN GT: RON ELIYAHOO
I took my Necrons (spoiler alert: they’re Dick’s Necrons) to the AO GT, going 5-1, surprising everyone and even myself with those results. This has added a lot of fuel to the fire to Cross the Rubicon, but this article isn’t about me and my struggles to win an event. This article is looking at Ron Eliyahoo - Winner of the AO GT! We’re going to dive into his 40K backstory, the list he took to the event, his run at AO and discuss some of his tips on how to prepare for an event and become a better 40K player. Ron - thank you so much for taking the time to chat with us. Congratulations on your win!
Let’s start at the beginning - how long have you been playing 40K and what drew you to the hobby initially?
I grew up in Nottingham, near Warhammer World. I had friends who were into 40K, so I had a lot of exposure to the game from a young age. I’d always loved the 40K lore, models and tabletop hobbies in general but the things that really pulled me in was the Assault on Black Reach starter box and the rise of YouTube battle reports (I love watching and learning about the game - when are you starting your channel…).
After playing 40K for a few months using the starter box, I was very much into terminator armour units and at the time the Grey Knights terminator kit was a new release and obnoxiously strong in the game. I ended up picking up a few boxes of them to start my new army and converted some into Mordrak and his ghost knights because they were a very quick and easy paint scheme. The rest is history.
Ron (3rd from right) and all his victims.
What got you into competitive 40K?
The 2020 pandemic gave me lots of free time and I wanted to pick up a creative outlet. I’d also been enjoying watching 40K YouTube battle reports, lore videos, and faction breakdowns which inspired me to pick up my Grey Knights again. I joined the NL competitive scene in mid-2021 where I took the new 9th Ed Grey Knights codex to the AO supermajor in November for my first event.
The AO has specific layouts and missions - what did you consider when building your list for this event?
I wanted to build my tyranids army to be as versatile as possible. The singles game is different from teams and with so many strong armies in the meta at the moment (and solid players piloting them) you need a solid mix of shooting, scoring and melee units. I didn’t want to build another stat check army of durability or objective control. That said, the list I ended up running somewhat built itself. Exocrines, Neurolictors, Gargoyles, Maleceptors, Hive Tyrants, a Biovore and the Deathleaper are pretty much 1500 points of every competitive Nid build out there these days.
I’ve played more than 50 games with Nids this edition and have made incremental changes throughout the process. Every time I play, but especially when I lose, I look at the reasons why and make changes. I’ve been trying to compensate for the weakness of the Tyranid army, rather than building to counter any specific boogeyman in the meta.
The buglord, Ron hard at work rolling his stupid small dice.
This year the AO GT was six rounds, three on Saturday and another three on Sunday. What was your path to going undefeated and winning it all?
Day 1 was mostly smooth but Day 2 was rough. I started off going 1st against a mainly melee build of chaos daemons and was able to screen the majority of the table to force a large scoring advantage. I think my current build is very much anti-melee and my opponent had key whiffs on offense as well as failed key battleshocks meaning the event started off with a clean 100VP.
Going into round 2 I had some PTSD from being paired with Nids into Votann because that was a truly awful matchup in 9th edition and isn’t particularly great now. This win came down to a few misplays from my opponent likely due to inexperience with the matchup and I managed to pull a small win out of the bag.
Round 3 was a favourable pairing into a fun death guard with a broad mix of units including Mortarion. The mobility issues of Death Guard are quite glaring in this matchup and I was able to passively outscore my opponent without taking much risk to put me undefeated at the end of day 1.
On paper, my day 2 was as rough as it gets. I was paired into the only 2 members of the 2023 team NL at the event and had the pleasure of meeting Eldar in the final. First up was Florian’s CSM which was a rather wild game that went to time, it was full of some really swingy interactions like a monster exploding for 3 mortals to kill his character with 3 wounds left deploying teleport homers in my deployment zone and my Old One Eye/Carnifex blob dealing 0 damage in melee to his obliterators because 12 attacks with full hit rerolls and sustained hits resulted in 2 hits. Ultimately, this one came down to a grind for both primary and secondary where I’d maxed secondaries and scored just enough primary on bottom turn 5 to take the lead.
Round 5 was against Jan-Coen’s firestorm/blood angel marines. JC also happened to be my hotel roommate so we were having some good banter as we’d both already achieved success being 2 out of the 5 players left undefeated. Fortunately for me, he was forced to start and that meant that he wasn’t able to get much done towards the secondary bring it down. I’d decided to let him make the first big push and so commit minimally to the objectives just to put him on 0 additional primary points. He then had his “go” turn but was hit hard by my spike-up on a key overwatch of his eradicators and later in my saving throws on the Old One Eye unit which were then able to punish his unit back much harder in melee. This started a snowball effect where he ultimately had no chance of catching up.
At this point I knew I was in for a rough final, I either had Eldar or shooty marines with 3 redemptor dreads. Two theoretically awful matchups but once I knew I had to face Aron I was happy. Aron and I were both a part of the same team for the last AO teams event and we managed to win that one, so the winner of our final here was going to win AO back-to-back and the other would likely also reach the podium. With that in mind, I still had to play against an army that my tools just can’t crack…mass AP-4 is painful, and T11+ that halves damage and has -1 to wound isn’t something Nids can deal with so I played the matchup like a grey knight player would and just tried to engage as little as possible and drip feed units into the middle to score as necessary. In the end, his overly cautious approach backfired and I’d reinforced a large enough early primary score lead to the point that he couldn’t recover from despite having nearly tabled me by the end. It was a little hectic by the end but I’d somehow pulled the win out of the hat and secured my 2nd consecutive AO win!
This year’s tournament was full of solid players and interesting lists. Were there any surprises on your run, or any tough matchups?
Oh, man! So many, but some of my favourites are…
- An AP-5 A'rgath Bloodthirster unable to kill 1 Carnifex in a single melee
- 1 exocrine overwatching 3 eradicators to death
- an exocrine exploding for 3 mortals and killing a character with 3 wounds remaining
- an 8” blood surge move tying up Votann’s Hearthgurd blob meaning the Carnifexes also fight first.
- rolling godly saves from the fexes against marines, something like 15 saves taken and only 3 failed 4+ saves.
- Aron naturally rolled 22 damage from 4d6 wraithguard damage on my 5+++ maleceptor and doing a natural 8 damage from the Avatar of Khaine’s 2+d6 melee damage when my hive tyrant had exactly 8 wounds left.
- The haruspex clutching that 4+ fight on death roll
- Death guard going first and killing the biovore turn 1 with indirect shooting.
Was there a standout unit for you, an MVP? Who was it and why?
Old One Eye maybe killed 1000 points of units across all games. Neurolictors are the reason my wins are all high-scoring and the Hive Tyrant makes the whole list work as cleanly and efficiently as it does. So there’s not one MVP in particular. This list is stronger than the sum of its parts.
Any changes you’d make to this list?
For singles no - this list rocks. For teams competitions I’d want that third Maleceptor.
You’ve had a sort of meteoric rise from starting in 2021 to winning a GT in 2023. Do you have any advice for us mortals who are just looking to improve our game?
Experience is key. I notice that a lot of players jump from what’s hot to what’s next too quickly. Stick with a faction and strategy long enough to draw concrete conclusions. Listen and learn from the pros who are using your army or those who are playing against it. Most importantly, keep tabs on yourself. Know your army’s win conditions and try to understand why you lose when you do. And for you Nids players out there - STAY HUNGRY!
Thank you very much, Ron for taking the time to sit and chat about your most recent victory at the Alliance Open GT. Congratulations again. I look forward to seeing you again at the next event (probably from a table or two lower than you ;)).
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