They say Christmas is a time for honesty, so here's my confession: I've loved Warhammer 40k for two decades; built, painted, and played it as my main hobby for eight years; and run this website for five - but I have never once entered a tournament, or competitive play event of any kind.
Among Warhammer 40k hobbyists, that's nothing unusual; a core tenet of the Warhammer faith is that there's something for everyone. But among us happy few who can, somehow, call ourselves 'Warhammer journalists', tournaments are rather a big segment of the game to have no experience with. So, at long last (and with the cajoling of friends) I'm going to one. And folks, I'm really goddamn nervous.
I'm not entirely sure why that is, to be honest. I am not, by nature, a shrinking violet. I'm a games journalist, so naturally I've been diagnosed with both ADHD and chronic anxiety. That venn diagram is, I'm afraid, a circle; they practically put it on our contracts. But I'm not shy of competition, public spaces, or strangers, even intimidating ones. In my career I've interviewed hundreds of people, from hunger striking asylum seekers, to comedians, to game designers, to James Workshop himself. Once, briefly, a former UK Deputy Prime Minister.
I'm no newcomer to big halls crowded with sweaty, excited nerds either. I've covered two Gen Cons, several UK cons, and before my Wargamer days had already spent hundreds of hours in dingy, poorly ventilated basement LGSs playing casual 40k, MTG, and D&D with pals. As a (somewhat sweaty) straight, white, cisgender man myself, I also enjoy the privilege of my presence in gaming spaces not being remotely unusual. Unlike many people outside that pampered demographic bubble, I never have to worry about automatically walking into a wall of judging stares, or feeling intimidated, unwanted, excluded, demeaned, or objectified. So I've got that going for me, I guess.
It's not the people or the environment making me quake in my boots, then. I think it's just that, after all these years of loving it, reading about it, playing it, and writing about it, I'm still just not very good at Warhammer. I'm pretty good at painting miniatures, and I'm no slouch in a shirtless, no holds barred, back alley lore trivia duel. If you Google "Warhammer 40k factions", the first thing you see is that linked article - which I wrote. Truly my finest hour.
But, after years of playing 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th edition Warhammer 40k, juggling detachments, keywords, stratagems, combos, and cheat sheets, my games are still just a mess of hesitation, ill considered deep strikes, and embarrassing misplays. I've gotten better, slowly, and now win more of my casual games than I lose - but those are all 'beer and pretzels' matches against personal friends with no more competitive experience than me. Facing off against folks who play hard ball 40k regularly is a very different kettle of fish. Worse, I'm painfully aware of how salty I can get when the dice hit the fan, and I know it's my fault.
I've never wallowed in self pity over this reticence to do tournaments - nobody has to play competitively - but performance anxiety really has locked me out of enjoying what is, unarguably, a major, highly popular part of my favorite hobby. No longer, it seems! A couple of good friends I've been playing with since 2017, when we all got back into Warhammer 40k together for 8th edition, convinced me to sign up for Tabletop Tactics' 2 Day Open League Tournament in early 2026.
That means five full, 2.5 hour long, 2,000 point Warhammer 40k matches in two days. I'm not quite jumping in at the deep end (I've met the TTT guys, and I'm confident their events will be as cute, cuddly, and friendly as I could wish for) but I'm at least climbing in halfway down the pool.
Tactica Mentalis
My first anxiety controlling tactic, of course, is not to go in hoping to win big, or even to win a single game, necessarily. I've got to convince my salty brain that its desired reward isn't victories, but - just like in my casual matches - doing my best, having a fun time, and carefully learning from my (many) mistakes.
My second is to bring an army list that's relatively powerful, forgiving, and gets most of its juice from datasheets, factions, and detachment rules, not fiddly stratagem plays or careful combos. That way I can focus most of my brain on movement, objective play, and target priority, without victory depending on CP management and pinpoint timing.
And my third is to try to mobilize you, the Wargamer reader, to critique my list and offer any helpful tips you may have (before the tournament, not during, obviously - I've never knowingly cheated at 40k and my very first competitive event would be an exceedingly poor time to start).
Tactica Ludax
To that end, behold below my 2,000 point Death Guard Mortarion's Hammer army list. It's a very simple machine: this vehicle-based detachment allows you to apply Afflicted to two units per turn, anywhere on the board, without being close to them. That gets around one of DG's big weaknesses: slow movement and short threat range. So, we have a three point plan:
- Stand and shoot: Park three Plagueburst Crawler tanks in the backline, boosted by a Lord of Virulence (with Tendrilous Emissions enhancement) nearby. Use their long range, indirect fire mortars to bombard those two long-range-afflicted targets every turn, removing key strategic units as early as possible. Surround them with Chaos Spawn - cheap melee units - to block enemy deep strikes, support certain secondary objectives, and defend the tanks in extremis.
- Harass the mid-board: Infiltrate Poxwalkers into the middle of the battlefield to block sight lines and movement to your front lines. While the enemy's occupied with finishing them off, push Foetid Bloat Drones and Myphitic Blighthaulers up the field to range the mid-board objectives. These can then fire on enemy units moving up, drop in to cap the middle points, fan out to pursue secondaries, or a mixture, as needed.
- Terminators lock it down: Once one of the middle objectives is threatened by something too tough for your smaller vehicles to deal with, Deathshroud Terminators use their 6 inch deep strike ability to deploy into an immediate charge, wiping out the threat and then shifting onto that objective, which they proceed to hold until the heat death of the universe. Blightlords do a similar job, but dropping onto objectives which still have some shooting room between them and the enemy.
Tactica Listii
My version of the list is not optimal. Pros don't bother with Blightlords or an extra beatstick character like Typhus, but load up on extra Deathshrouds instead; they're phenomenally good, and six inch deep striking is too good not to max out. There will be some who say Typhus doesn't belong in this list at all, to which I say: he is my favorite awful boy, he punches like a truck, and he's coming.
And the thing is, I've only got three Deathshrouds, while I have ten Blightlords - and kind of prefer the Blightlord models. I know my Blighties won't do the locking down or shock attacking jobs as well as Shroudies, but one thing I decided early on was not to buy whole new units especially for this, just for the benefit of 'netlisting' more effectively.
It's the same reason I've only got one Heavy Blight Launcher drone, and two Plaguespitter ones - because them's the models I got. That part of the army will do better against horde targets, and worse against high Toughness, high save elites, and that's just the way it is. In fact, my first test version of this list traded most of the terminators for a wildly off meta Knight Ruinator, but this was such a disaster in practice games that I've seen the error of my ways.
Here's the list:
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+ FACTION KEYWORD: Chaos - Death Guard
+ DETACHMENT: Mortarion's Hammer (Miasmic Bombardment)
+ TOTAL ARMY POINTS: 1990pts
+
+ WARLORD: Lord of Virulence
+ ENHANCEMENT: Tendrilous Emissions (on Lord of Virulence)
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
- 1 x Typhus (100 pts): Lakrimae
- 1 x Lord of Contagion (120 pts): Manreaper
- 1 x Lord of Virulence (130 pts): Warlord, Power fist, Twin plague spewer
- Enhancement: Tendrilous Emissions (+30 pts)
- 5 x Blightlord Terminators (185 pts)
- 4 x Blightlord Terminator
- 1 with Blight launcher, Bubotic blade
- 1 with Bubotic blade, Combi-weapon
- 1 with Bubotic blade, Plague spewer
- 1 with Bubotic blade, Reaper autocannon
- 1x Blightlord Champion: Bubotic blade, Combi-weapon
- 4 x Blightlord Terminator
- 3 x Deathshroud Terminators (160 pts)
- 1x Deathshroud Terminator Champion: Manreaper, Plaguespurt gauntlet
- 2x Deathshroud Terminator: 2 with Manreaper, Plaguespurt gauntlet
- 10 x Poxwalkers (65 pts): 10 with Improvised weapons
- 2 x Chaos Spawn (80 pts): 2 with Hideous Mutations
- 1 x Foetid Bloat-drone (100 pts): Two plaguespitters, 2x Plaguespitter, Plague probe
- 1 x Foetid Bloat-drone (100 pts): Two plaguespitters, 2x Plaguespitter, Plague probe
- 1 x Foetid Bloat-drone with heavy blight launcher (120 pts): Heavy blight launcher, Plague probe
- 1 x Myphitic Blight-hauler (100 pts): Bile spurt, Gnashing maw, Missile launcher, Multi-melta
- 1 x Myphitic Blight-hauler (100 pts): Bile spurt, Gnashing maw, Missile launcher, Multi-melta
- 1 x Plagueburst Crawler (210 pts): 2 entropy cannons, 2x Entropy cannon, Armoured tracks, Plagueburst mortar, Heavy slugger
- 1 x Plagueburst Crawler (210 pts): 2 entropy cannons, 2x Entropy cannon, Armoured tracks, Plagueburst mortar, Heavy slugger
- 1 x Plagueburst Crawler (210 pts): 2 entropy cannons, 2x Entropy cannon, Armoured tracks, Plagueburst mortar, Heavy slugger
My hope is that this army's win conditions are simple enough, and its datasheets strong enough, that even with my scatterbrain I can pilot it fairly decently and at the very least put up a good fight in a few games, learning some stuff all the while. Who knows, I might get the competitive bug and sign up for some more next year.
If you have any suggestions, advice, snide comments, unpleasant jibes, limericks, or otherwise want to weigh in on my very first Warhammer 40,000 tournament list, come join the free Wargamer Discord and let me know! I'll be thinking about this game plan an unhealthy amount of the holiday break, so your (constructive) input is most welcome.
Other than that, I'll take this quick moment to wish you all a very happy, restful holiday from all at team Wargamer! May your days be merry and bright, and your every roll a hard six.