Welcome back, Dear Reader, to my ongoing attempts to chronicle my journey through 2023 in the same way I’ve covered the past two years. In my previous article, I covered my final preparations for Warhammer Fest 2023, including my flight to London and the night I spent playing Boarding Actions against James “One_Wing” Grover. If you missed that one, you can find it here.

Finishing the Trip to Manchester

Getting to London was only the first leg of my trip, and the hour-and-a-half-bus ride to Oxford the second. The third and final leg was the car ride with Wings to Manchester, a city about three and a half hours’ drive north of Oxford. This is longer than I expected given my notions of the size of England, but ultimately means a good old fashioned ROAD TRIP is in order.

It’s gray and raining when we leave, setting the stage for the entire trip and ensuring I’ll get the most authentic “England spring weather” experience possible, but it’s not bad enough to slow the journey. We talk about all manner of things on the trip up, covering everything from the state of the meta to our plans for the weekend to the upcoming 10th edition of 40k to Goonhammer business. It’s a fun conversation and James is one of my favorite people to talk to.

We arrive in the late afternoon and park in the catacomb-like lots under the convention center. The building itself is made from an old train station – converted in the 1980s – and this is immediately obvious when you see the structure. It’s an impressive building and the site of the weekend’s festivities. Wings and I are in different hotels – I’m more or less bound to stay in Bonvoy establishments – but we’re each only a block or two away from the venue. We drop off our respective things and then head over to the venue to do pre-event registration and check-in. This will save some much-needed time the next day, since attendance at the event would be pretty crazy.

Day 1 of Warhammer Fest (and the GT)

I wasn’t originally intending to spend an extra day in England before heading to the GT but the reason I flew over on Wednesday night is a longer story I’ll save for another time. The upside was that it gave me an extra day to attempt to acclimate to the time zone, and that was helpful as, while I didn’t get a good night’s sleep or anything, I did get something approaching one. So when I groggily rolled out of bed Saturday morning I wasn’t nearly as exhausted as I normally am at these things. I start the day with some hotel breakfast – mostly some fruit, bread, and brie cheese – before heading over to the venue.

For about 20 minutes, the weather was OK

Lining up outside the venue

The lines on day 1 were pretty long. I got there relatively late, which helped a little bit, but the good news was that things moved pretty fast and I was able to get in with time to spare before pairings went up. That said, walking into the event was probably the most impressive part:

The main entrance to the venue

I have those same rock piles on my gaming table

walking into the main hall

cosplayers on the move

you should probably get that looked at

Horus, just hanging out

A truescale stand-up of Tactical Dreadnought armor

Tactical Dreadnought booty is dummy thicc

The competitive space ate up about 60% of the main hall

Players making their way through the side hall

A sick Necron costume over by the Combat Cards booth

In their attempt to provide something more akin to a true con experience, Games Workshop had gone all out with the entryway decorations, giving us a warzone-styled entry to the great hall. This helped properly set up the size of the room, but the effect itself once you entered didn’t live up to that initial presentation – the space itself was largely empty once you passed the threshold, and though they had a number of people walking by in impressive cosplay and a “true-to-life”-sized Terminator animatronic, it was hard to shake the feeling that there should have been more going on in the center of the space.

That central area was flanked on the left by the Golden Demon competition, with a massive U-shape of glass display cases showing off a mix of the world’s most mind-blowing works (which make you really feel for the judges who have to choose), and solid but outclassed entries from more aspirational hobbyists looking to challenge themselves. On the right is Hang Out and Paint area, a large group of long tables covered in paint stations, where visitors can well, you get the idea.

Past that are the GW store on the left, with a selection of exclusive merch that’s mostly wearable swag with “WARHAMMER FEST 2023” written on it and some objective markers. On the right, a series of booths from GW licensees who cover everything from tabletop wargames to mobile games (more on these later). And in the middle, the half a dozen or so demo tables where they’ll be taking players through games of Warhammer 40k: 10th Edition. Beyond those three booths are the many rows of gaming tables which will host various GTs and casual events.

If you read that last paragraph and thought “6 tables for 10th edition preview games isn’t enough” well, you’re right. It may also have been four; I’m not sure because I never really went back to that table – there was a 2-4 hour line for the demo pretty much all weekend and I never so much as entertained the idea of waiting on it. No instead, we tasked other Goonhammer authors with braving the wait – you can read the first of those reports on how the new game plays here.

I didn’t have a ton of time to spend on the main floor, though – I had a GT to compete in.

Day 1 of the Warhammer 40k GT

The Warhammer Fest 40k GT was, unusually for Games Workshop, a 9-round event featuring some 260-ish players over three days. Players play their first five rounds, then are bracketed into different groups based on their record after those five rounds. Finish 5-0 and you’re pretty much guaranteed to make the top 16 cut. That’s a fun dream, but I’ll be happy with 3-2 over the first two days. I’m focusing on those first two days here because it was always extremely unlikely I’d play any games on day 3; the way the brackets work if you go 4-0 after those first five games you win prizes, so losing games 6 or 7 mean I’m almost certain to drop immediately following. This will kill my final placings but also saves me a lot of time playing meaningless games while I’m holding up Soggy from driving us both back to London, a four-hour trip.

You may recall from last time that I decided to play my Death Guard for this event. Someone asked why I chose them over Black Legion or Thousand Sons (my World Eaters aren’t fully painted), and my answer is generally that Death Guard are both better than those two armies (particularly because I don’t have flamers to ally into the Thousand Sons), and also the army I’m most comfortable with playing on short notice – there’s very little cognitive load with them since you don’t have to worry about things like “moving during your opponent’s turn” or “managing a dozen different psychic powers per turn.” You just walk forward and fuck shit up.

Just to recap, here’s my list:

My Death Guard list - click to expand

Game 1: vs. Owen Parsonage’s Chaos Knights

Day one games in the GT are played using Games Workshop’s controversial “layout 3,” which puts a pair of small terrain features in the center of the board. Everyone, myself included, assumes these are dense and difficult but apparently they’re just difficult, which makes this layout even worse. That said, I didn’t discover this until after day 1 was long over and I don’t know if my opponents ever did. Either way, difficult terrain in the middle of the board means absolutely nothing to Death Guard, and that makes this a relatively solid layout for my army, since I can move across the middle of the board at a speed that is, well still slow but more regular.

The Mission: Recover the Relics

This is one of my least favorite missions, as I’m really, really not a fan of the “don’t get CP if you don’t control an objective outside of your deployment zone mechanic,” a lame punishment for the player going second. This mission also features six objectives and hold one/two scoring, which means it’s almost impossible to stop someone from scoring 40 on primary here.

My Secondaries:

• Bring it Down
• Spread the Sickness
• Warp Ritual

Owen’s Secondaries:

• Ruthless Tyranny
• Storm of Darkness
• Bring it Down

No surprises here. Owen’s trying to make the best of a bad situation with Bring it Down, for which I can give up 10 VP if he wipes all my vehicles (he’ll need to at least kill the three PBCs to stand a chance). With six objectives to spread on, that one’s a no-brainer for me.

Owen's list - click to expand

Owen holds his Rampager and one War Dog in reserves; the Rampager is Strategic Reserves while the War Dog is teleporting in. I hold my Deathshrouds in reserve. They’re more like a movement/reach play for me with this list.

I’m Going First.

That’s not necessarily good or bad here; it lets me alpha strike but I’m unlikely to take out the Despoiler turn 1. it does get me extra CP (and keeps Owen off one) while also giving me one more turn to work before the Rampager shows up. Having one big knight to handle is manageable; two is a problem. I use my first turn to press forward and soften up the Despoiler while still playing conservatively to avoid charges. My plan is to use the Inexorable strat to force long bombs if it comes to it. Owen presses forward on his turn and only does 6 wounds to my dense cover-protected PBC in front after I roll two saves against his Diamonas. That’s pretty much the game as the following turn I’ll blow it up and force him to rethink deploying the Rampager.

Owen holds his Rampager for turn 3 (a mistake in my estimation), and in the meantime I’m able to get ahead of him on primary, scoring some 12s while holding him to 4 in battle round 4. He still pulls really high points on secondaries because Ruthless Tyranny is basically free, but I’m able to hold on and win in a game that wasn’t particularly close.

Result: Win, 96-79

Winning game 1 is always a good feeling. It immediately relieves that tension of “oh god when am I going to get my first win” and starts you off on the right foot. Owen was a good opponent and a great guy to play and I wish him luck in the next rounds. I grab something called a “pasty” for lunch – it’s a kind of pastry filled with meat and potatoes and isn’t particularly good in this context of “fast venue food” – and then it’s on to round 2.

Round 2: vs. Christian Domburg’s Astra Militarum

Christian's List - click to expand

The Astra Militarum are an army I’ve never really struggled against. I’ve had a couple of rough games against Brendan Muller of the Astros Militarum, but those have always come when I’m playing some bullshit army I know doesn’t have a chance. Usually I see them in the context of “beating the tar out of Scott Horras’ army.” As Death Guard, my biggest concern against them is the Kasrkin – this is just not an army that can handle taking 6 mortal wounds per turn so I need to dispatch them quickly.

The Mission: Abandoned Sanctuaries

The mission helps me a lot here. It stops pregame scout and deploy moves from coming into no man’s land and it puts a big objective right there in the middle of the table for me to walk on to and hold, with only two alternatives – and I plan to hold those as well. I put a unit of Death Shroud into Deep Strike. Christian holds nothing back on his end, but he can teleport a unit of Kasrkin mid-game.

My Secondaries:

• Bring it Down
• Warp Ritual
• Fleeing Vectors

Christian’s Secondaries:

• Boots on the Ground
• Inflexible Command
• Retrieve Battlefield Data

Secondary selection is hard here. Grind is tough because Christian is relying on three big, durable units of Sentinels, plus those command squads are tough and the Leman Russes will go down hard. My plan is to concentrate instead on the troops. Between mortars and regular shooting and grenades I can remove all of Christian’s ObSec from the game early, and if I can deplete his Kasrkin before they strike I can prevent them from being worth 2 CP to cause mortal wounds. I go with Fleeing Vectors over Grind, hoping to have 3 turns where I kill 7+ models of infantry and then cause one failed morale test to score 11-13.

I’m Going Second.

That’s not ideal but it helps me for late-turn scoring on primary, at least. I weather some sentinel- and executioner-plasma shooting on turn 1 and manage to keep all three PBCs on the board. That’s all I needed really – I use their mortars and some direct shots to whittle down the Kasrkin on turn 1, taking 3-4 models out of each squad. I’ll do the same the following turn, mostly keeping the mortal wound strat out of play while I slowly deal with the sentinels. For his part, Christian (smartly) abandons the middle of the table to my Blightlords, but can’t hold both flanks simultaneously. My plague marines and pox walkers hold the left just long enough, while my Death Shrouds and plague marines sweep up the right and lock up some of Christian’s vehicles.

I hold Christian to 16 on primary and despite the fact that Inflexible Command is free points, there’s not much more to it than that.

Result: Win, 84-67

There’s a quick turnaround from round 2 to 3 and we’re off again.

Round 3: vs. Dylan Usher’s Drukhari

text

Dylan's list - click to expand

Dylan’s a pretty good player but I’ve played against Swiftblade’s Drukhari many, many times with my Death Guard and I’m more than comfortable with my strategy for beating them. This in particular is not helped by the fact that Dylan lacks the meaty weapons he needs to deal with three PBCs – as soon as I look at his list and see he has no dark lances I breathe a sigh of relief – he’s going to have an uphill battle and needs to get exceptionally lucky with his two heat lances on turn 1 to have much of a chance here. He’s relying on a ton of 2-damage weapons which is *not* a good place to be when you play Death Guard.

The Mission: Tide of Conviction

In theory this mission isn’t great for me – no center objective and the Drukhari mobility makes it hard for me to meet them on four objective fronts, and I may not even cross mid table, especially if Dylan is jamming me in my DZ trying to score Behind Enemy Lines.

My Secondaries:

• Grind Them Down
• Spread the Sickness
• Warp Ritual

Dylan’s Secondaries:

• Behind Enemy Lines
• Retrieve Battlefield Data
• Assassination

The biggest difference between going up against Craftworlds and going up against Drukhari is that against Craftworlds I can’t take Warp Ritual. It’s not a *great* pick when Dylan has a Shadowseer but it’s worth risking compared to some of my other options. Grind is going to get me extra CP here and Spread is an easy pick on 6 objectives.

I’m Going Second.

I don’t love that, since it means I only get one turn before advance-and-charge kicks in for the Drukhari, but I can live with it. Dylan shoots across the board with his reivers turn 1 and ties up a rhino but isn’t able to destroy it. I’ll get out, fall back, and kill his unit while chipping some others and use the melee movement to slingshot into the ruins on the left side of the table. The critical moment here is is second turn – Dylan charges in with his Succubus and Incubi against my two units. His succubus kills four plague marines in one squad, but his Incubi fail to force me to fight last (a 9+ roll), and so I interrupt and kill every last one of them. The following turn I’ll shoot the Succubus to death.

Dylan won’t recover from this, as I’ll push up the left side and hold that objective all game. On the right side he’ll struggle to chew through two units of plague marines and the poxwalkers, then the Deathshroud show up and kill his incubi and harlequins. I’ll manage to max Spread the Sickness and pull 12 on Grind, but I’m denied a third Warp Ritual.

Result: Win, 89-52

I am feeling pretty great after starting 3-0. It’s a hell of a start for me and not something I expected to happen when I brought Death Guard. My opponents have been no slouches, either – while I haven’t been paired into the best players the game has to offer, Chaos Knights and Astra Militarum are upper-tier armies, and Dylan is a former team Ireland player and more than capable of winning games when the matchup isn’t stacked against him. It’s an amazing start to a weekend where my goal is 3-3, and I’ll admit I had some of the butterflies heading to bed that night.

The Goonhammer crew joins up with Innes and we hit up a local curry house for dinner. It’s pretty good and I crush some samosas, sag paneer, and chicken tikka before finally tapping out on food for the evening. I don’t end up having the bad heartburn I’m expecting, but I also crush a fistful of pepto before bed. We hang out drinking and talking for a while but ultimately retire pretty early – like everyone else, I am exhausted from the day’s games and already feeling it in my back.

The walk back to the hotel reminds me that it’s Saturday night, and that Manchester hosts three universities. Every block is crowded with people, impossibly young and impossibly beautiful, all dressed to the nines and waiting in line to get behind closed doors. While thinking about what could have been I remind myself that even when I was in my 20s those closed doors were largely never open to me. The upside is that, just this once, I’ll get a decent night’s sleep when I get back to the hotel.

Next Time: Days 2 and 3

That wraps up my recap of Day 1, but join me later this week when I talk about days 2 and 3 and my remaining games at the event. Until then, if you have any questions or feedback, drop us a note in the comments below or email us at contact@goonhammer.com.