Hello sports fans. If you’re here, it means you are about to read my recount of a Warhammer 40k GT I attended in Bendigo last weekend, or you’re a lawyer, but that’s classified.

On the 6-7th of September 2025, I attended the 3rd Bendigo Open Warhammer GT. This event is held in the town, in which I live, excellent. I still somehow spent like $200 over the course of the weekend.

The Bendigo Open is a fantastic event run by Half-an-inch-out gaming, a local club, and has people travel from the surrounding Victoria region to play some toy soldiers. It was held at a different venue this year, a community centre, where I had competed in music competitions during my youth. It is a weird vibe that c. 16 years ago the POV of the featured picture in this article was me playing the saxophone to a crowd of 4.

Ahh, memories.

We had chairs too, so it was better than any event held in Ballarat.

I decided to run CSM at this event. I was initially going to run Renegade Raiders with 3 Lord Discordants, 3 Vindicators, and 3×2 Obliterators + trash. However, I couldn’t be bothered building the second Vindicator. So, I began to explore. I started brewing with Cabal of Chaos, having Obliterators ignore cover is neat, as well as advance and charge for my chaos boys, but something was missing and so I went searching for more. That’s when my eyes glanced upon the Deceptors detachment.

As a man that only owned 10 cultists, because cultists are for cucks and Night Lord bros would never go into battle with a bunch of cucks – except Septimus, he’s a homie. However, the DG codex recently removed cultists and so I bought 20 off a friend. Now I could play DECEPTORS without feeling bad by not using the detachment rule at all. Turns out infiltrators with sticky objectives is actually pretty good.

Additionally, in my lifelong quest to make Obliterators better I can now give them full rerolls to hit* and potentially full re-rolls to wound* with the restrictions of being below full and half strength. This was good enough to me.

In addition to this gatcha gaming, I have a flat 6″ reactive move stratagem for Infantry/Mounted, a block 12″ deepstrike stratagem for an entire unit, fall back & shoot, bonuses to charge and auto-explode enemy vehicles.

Deceptors exists in a sweet spot where the stratagems are good enough to have fun and win against mid tables, while not being so good that if I lose, I actually have to take responsibly that I played poorly, instead of just blaming the detachment.

If I win, it’s because of skill.

If I lose, detachment bad lmao.

That’s how I plan on coping anyway.

My list:

• Chaos Lord: Cursed Fang
• Chaos Lord in Terminator armour: Soul Link
• Chaos Lord with Jump Pack: Shrud of Obfuscation
• MoE
• Vashtorr
• 3×10 Cultists
• 1×5 Legionaries
• 1×5 Chaos Terminators
• Chaos Vindicator
• Forgefiend
• 1×5 Nemesis Claw
• 3×2 Obliterators

I enjoy Obliterators. Nemesis Claw are Night Lords, so I need to take them, they also pair well with the MoE and become supercharged – as much as they can.

Terminators because they fit into the list I guess, I did tinker for a bit but as usual I ended up bringing what would require the least amount of painting just because I wasn’t dead set on any meme in particular.

Vashtorr is cute, and he needs a dog to walk him around and give him lone operative.

I was a bit like, meh about Deceptors prior to this event, but I think I’m going to continue playing them as my main CSM detachment at events for the rest of the year. I have 3 more GTs and at least 1 RTT. Two of the GTs are more narrative events, so I’ll ball Dread Talons for those, but there is an 8-game 3 dayer I hope to attend in November and that has Deceptors written all over it. No fewer Obliterators next time.

NB. I had a minor surgery on the Wednesday before the event and was a bit out of it during. My memory of the games isn’t as sharp as normal so I may miss some bits.

Game 1 – Martin’s T’au

Purge the Foe, Hammer and Anvil

Martin’s List (Experimental Prototype Cadre): Commander Farsight, Commander Shadowsun, Commander in Coldstar Battlesuit: Fusion Blades, Commander in Coldstar Battlesuit: Supernova Launcher, 2×1 Broadside Battlesuits, 1×3 Crisis Fireknife Battlesuits, 1×3 Crisis Starscythe Battlesuits, 2×3 Crisis Sunforge Battlesuits, Ghostkeel Battlesuit, 2×10 Kroot Carnivores, Piranhas, Riptide Battlesuit, 3×3 Stealth Battlesuits, 1×5 Vespid Stingwings.

Marin is a Bendigo local who I’ve played many times in the past, we had a practice game leading up to this event, however I was playing Sisters then and I am playing CSM now so I wasn’t entirely sure of how this one would go.

However, I was going second on Purge the Foe so, pretty neat.

It’s a double-edged sword playing in a Warhammer event with a lot of people you play locally. It can allow you to metagame some in-game decisions leaning on the knowledge of understanding whether your opponent tends to play conservatively, or aggressively. Compounded by Tau’s generally conservative playstyle in 10th edition – discounting Kroot attack mode – going first on purge isn’t fab.

In the first battle round, Martin picked up some solid first secondaries. This also forced him to give up a Piranha and a unit of 10 Kroot, although I left a single Kroot alive which he auto passed battle shock to keep the far objective sticky – and block a gap for deepstrikes.

I pushed up and aggressively advanced my cultists hoping to block any decent deepstrike angles Martin could get with his Crisis suits in the following turn. This is compounded by the 12″ no deepstrike stratagem that Deceptors have access too. Although in return I did play quite conservatively, with the position of the cultists I definitely could have gotten away with putting Vashtor on the centre touching the top building, pushing for hold more and Sabotage, although I was only on two.

I was still attempting to play intelligently this game, which fell off quite hard later on in the event.

This turned out to be the correct play as Martin drew storm hostile objective in his turn and although I was holding the centre objective with cultists there was nothing he wanted to give up and contest it with, as it could have likely cost him an entire Crisis unit for 4 points. I rapid ingressed some Terminators in my turn and sent it towards his castle, leaving a Riptide on a single wound so I couldn’t auto detonate it, very sad.

The go second advantage on Purge combined with the elite-esque nature of my army proved too much to overcome in this game. My secondary scoring wasn’t awful but it is definitely something I need to work on while playing CSM.

You can find Martin online at Redblurr Gaming – YouTube.

Game 2 – Erina’s Adepta Sororitas

Scorched Earth, Crucible of Battle

Erina’s List (Hallowed Martyrs): Canoness: Saintly Example, Daemonifuge, Hospitaller, Junith Eruita, Morvenn Vahl, Palatine: Through suffering, Strength, 10x BSS, Immolator, Sorotias Rhino, 1×10 Arco’s, 2×10 Celestian Sac’s (1 Mace, 1 Halberd), Paragon Warsuits, 2×5 Seraphim, Canis Rex

I have only had the opportunity to play against Sister’s three times at events, and 2/3 times it has been an awesome experience. This was one of those times.

As a chronically online degenerate I spend far too much time scouring BCP and looking at local tournament lists and players. The pool of players that play Sisters is quite small and as a previous and soon to be Sisters enjoyer I am often on the lookout for this particular army.

I began stalking Erina at the Risky Rollers open last year While looking at lists I noticed Erina had been placing well at other GTs and RTTs with Sisters so I was looking forward to this game.

Erina’s army was painted beautifully, and I thanked her profusely for bringing Canis instead of 3 Castigators.

A huge advantage I had when I played Sisters at the start of 10th was that people did not have a lot of experience into the army. They are an interesting army in a game that involves rolling dice, in the sense that they can avoid this entirely with their army rule. This means that you need to order your operations very carefully, and sometimes just not attack or kill a unit to avoid giving them resources they can use on your turn.

These factors require you to play in a certain way to cuck them, while they are also trying to cuck you. Additionally, Hallowed Martyr’s has some insane stratagems. A combination of all of these factors means that Sisters are never really out of the game, and although – spoilers – I took a big advantage early on in this game, I still felt as if I could have lost at any moment.

I am really keen to get my Sisters back on the table.

I wasn’t the best at taking photos during the event. But luckily the TO’s took photos of every table, each round so I have at least one!

I was going first.

I played my Blue Eyes Obliterator Dragon in attack position and decided to full send. I staged as aggressively as I could and yeeted my Rhino into the middle where it was safe from all shooting except Canis unless he poked his head out. I was almost certain I’d be able to Juan Deeg him if he did, and there wouldn’t be anything in position to pick up my infantry, so I was safeish in this play. It also allowed me to get an asset up the board and in position to contest the far objective.

Erina did some shuffling in her turn, and sent the Arco’s towards my screening cultists, Vashtorr, Forgefiend & Vindicator. The Halberd Sac’s with Palatine jumped in the Rhino and the other Sacs hopped in a ruin to Sabotage. She also sent the Daemonifuge out into the middle, I wasn’t sure about this play as they are such a huge asset in this match up. I heroic’d the arco charge with Vashtorr and when the dust was settled the cultists were dead, and all but 3 Arco’s were left.

This did mean that Vashtorr, the Forgefiend and the Vindicator were tied up, but the rest of Erina’s movement was very conservative and didn’t really take advantage of the Arco’s sacrifice. I still held the no man’s land objective on my side and without any targets to shoot anyway the Arco’s were traded for a unit of cultists.

At the start of my turn 2, I turned to Erina and said, ‘wouldn’t it be funny if I just full sent my entire army’, I don’t think Erina thought it was funny. I kept Vashtorr and the Forgefiend safe, while spending a CP to fallback and shoot with the Vindi, deep striking all the Obliterators, one unit found a spot in Erina’s backfield which she had not screened, and the Terminators on the far side objective near where the Sacs were Sabotaging. The Chaos lord unit got out to fight the Seraphim and Immolator and the Nemesis claw unit stayed safe in the boat (I think). Erina rapid ingressed the Paragon War suits in the gap on the bottom right ruin near the Sac’s completing Sabotage, within 9″ of my Terminators.

A few things went right for me this turn. I used Obliterators to kill a Paragon Warsuit, however, this meant the charge for my Terminators would be a 10″. The Vindicator killed the Daemonifuge, and the Oblits in the back killed Junith, which Erina resurrected. This was entirely the correct play as the extra CP at the start of turn is hugely important in Hallowed Martyrs. This did mean I got to kill the Pinata Canoness without a resurrect, potentially denying 4 miracle dice.

I deployed the other Oblits on the top near the Rhino and I guess tried to indirect and charge it? But they failed to do much. They may have left it on 2-3 wounds or something, but I forget.

I used my +charge stratagem on the Terminators and needed a 7 after I made a lot of other charges. This is one of the benefits of Deceptors and sort of requires your opponent to play around it. I had 2-3 definite charges that were almost unfailable. The Chaos lord into the Immo + Seraphs, the Rhino into the Immo, and the Jump pack lord into the Arco’s that were in my front line. I rolled a 6 on my Terminators and used my last CP to re-roll it into an 8. If this failed, the game may have been over on the spot. Although the odds of making my other Obliterator charges were low, I failed both of them. I didn’t expect to make them but when you make big plays across the board you don’t necessarily need to make all of them work. Obliterators are better at shooting anyway.

I believe Erina was out of CP at this point, however a Heroic from the Sac’s + force fight them would have saved the Warsuits and the game. Erina did overwatch the Terminators but didn’t roll a single 6 on the Melta’s, or rockets.

The Terminators picked up all the Warsuits and left Morvenn on 4 wounds. All that was left now was Canis.

From here the dice were just not on Erina’s side. She managed to clear the Chaos Lord unit, the Oblits in her back line and the Terminators, however, an entire unit of Sacs + Palatine charges the two Obliterators at the top, and even with full re-rolls to hit managed to do a total of 3 damage. I rolled 10/12 4+ saves against the Sacs and all of the 4+ against the Palatine. It was cursed.

I took Canis down in the next turn, doing 21 damage with a Vindicator and removed some other assets. However, I was heavily neglecting secondaries, and this is a problem that – I think I’ve already mentioned this – will continue throughout the event. I managed to get some good turn 5 secondaries, and guarantee a burn, getting me ahead by 6 points at the end of the game.

This game was by far the most enjoyable of the event, Erina was hilarious, and I look forward to seeing them again at an 8-man teams’ event in October.

WTC RANT: My opinion edition

In 9th I loved the Night Lords, but I gave them up, because I couldn’t figure out how to play Warhammer. Instead, I ran with the Adepta Sororitas. A faction with essentially 2 free faction secondaries which required nothing more than sitting on a no man’s land objective and discarding miracle dice.

Easy game.

After playing a few games with CSM in 10th I’m starting to realize I have the same problem. I never really prioritise or think about secondaries and so my scoring suffers, while my primary scoring is generally quite good.

With the other armies I’ve played, Sisters and Ad Mech, I always have enough trash to score and play smartly, but with CSM. I refuse to play the gentlemen’s game.

I want to attack.

This brings me to WTC.

Anyone that thinks WTC terrain layouts are suitable for singles events, is a moron.

WTC is a format designed for teams, and as such the terrain is designed in a way to essentially force close games, or differential scoring drawn situations. This is to put more emphasis on the pairing’s element of teams. As such, if you get good pairings, you can gain team points there while being reassured that the other non-skewed pairings will be geared towards draws. This heavily reduces the impact of go first/go second as if your game is within 5 points, it’s a draw, and within 10 you’re only giving up 2 team points.

This is a generalisation, and Warhammer is a dice game, but why are we using this dogshit terrain in singles? It is incredibly boring and encourages players to sit there, trading single units until someone realizes, oh flip, I gotta go. It also encourages the most cuck list building imaginable and discourages cool, fun, and interesting units.

I do understand that there is a subset of people who would rather not play on the Terrain the game is balanced on and are more interested in winning than interacting with their opponents. Go play Chess, loser.

GW layouts for life.

NB. Shut up, I touch grass.

NB 2. Teams is fun though; I highly recommend it.

Game 3 – Alex’s Astra Militarum

Linchpin, Tipping Point

Alex’s list (Combined Arms): Cadian Command Squad, 2x Rogal Dorn Commander: Death Mask of Ollanius, Ursula Creed, 1×10 Cadian Shock Troops, 1×10 Catachan Jungle Fighters, 1×20 Death Korps of Krieg, 2x Chimera, 10x Attilan Rough Riders, 2×6 Bullgryn Squad, Hellhound, 2×10 Kasrkin.

Combined arms, an absolute classic. Alex let me know that Hammer of the Emperor is dead, long live Combined Arms.

Unfortunately for me, that meant BULLGRYN. Ngl, I definitely want an Astra Militarum army.

Linchpin, going first baby.

Starting off with secure was ok. I advanced the cultists out, pushed forward aggressively and passed the turn, unable to score marked for death as I didn’t want to give up the indirect on my Obliterators early on.

Alex moved a Hellhound onto the middle and staged a few units. There is a big wall of Bullgryn against the wall of the ruin on his home point, spooky. He shot the Hellhound at the cultists – this was the only unit he exposed – and left one alive. This worked excellently for me as it allowed me to block movement from Alex pushing onto my no man’s land objective and kept it secured for another turn.

In my turn, I moved the Vindicator out to shoot the Hellhound, but I wasn’t 100% sure it would remove it so I also indirected with the Obliterators first, and if they got a wound through, I would give the Vindi full re-rolls to hit.

The Obliterators 1 hit the Hellhound with indirect, Kek.

Then Alex killed the Vindicator with long range fire from a Dorn and the Kasrkin, through smoke. Yuck. I tried to suppress the black rage after this happened, but I was full send. In the next turn I charged the Chaos Lord, MoE, Vashtorr and Termie unit into the Bullgryn behind the wall, and Oblits into a 1 wound Chimera, which I now remember didn’t consolidate into the Kasrkin that jumped out lmao.

After all my attacks were over, 1 Bullgryn remained, F.

I did tag the Cadian command unit with Ursula on his home point with Terminators and passed the turn back to Alex. He picked up the Chaos Lord unit on the other side of the wall, but with an entire Dorn Commander & Kasrkin unit only picked up 2 models, a Terminator and a Nemesis claw bro, maybe the Oblits too I forget. He also rapid ingressed the rough riders, which charged the Obliterators, and due to all the move blocking by the big infantry unit allowed the terminators to consolidate into them and be safe. The terminators killed the entire rough rider unit in the clap back and I think the Obliterators lived.

In the next turn I was able to kill everything on his home point and more or less secure the game as Alex was unable to deny any of my primary throughout the game and I kept up just enough on secondaries. He did re-take his home with Bullgryn but by then it was too late.

You don’t need to be good if you’re lucky – Michael Scott – Ryan Jones 2025.

Game 4 – Ian’s T’au Empire

Linchpin, Tipping Point

“Ian’s” List (Auxiliary Cadre): Kroot Lone-spear: Fanatical Convert, 3×1 Broadside Battlesuits, 2x Ghostkeel Battlesuit, 1×10 Kroot Carnivores, 3×6 Krootox Rampagers, 1×10 Pathfinder Team, 2×1 Sky Ray Gunship, 3×3 Stealth Battlesuits, 2×5 Vespid Stingwings.

Ian is another Bendigo local who I’ve played a lot before. He plays T’au, only T’au, and now he has a fight phase.

The previous night we went out for dinner with some out of towners and Ian spent most of the dinner offering me raffle tickets to lower the number of Obliterators I would bring to our game in the morning.

Little did Ian know, my list was actually dogshit, I’m just a sweaty loser.

It was Supply drop, on layout 3, with long edge deployment. I was going first.

Uh oh.

I was able to mostly neutralize the Krootox threat in this game but wasn’t able to score any primary or secondaries. While Vespid allowed Ian to get most of his secondaries and out OC me with cheap units.

If the game had of gone for let’s say, 15 turns. I may have pulled out a win in the end.

The highlight of the game for me was charging my Jump Pack Chaos lord into some Vespid and dark pacting, which then failed, and killed him. Just as planned. These Vespid then scored 5 for primary, and 5 for Area Denial without moving. You win some, you dim sum.

Ian played a well-considered and planned game, getting to the finals at this event for the second time in 3 years, I wished him luck and started coping about how I was actually a very skilled player, it was just the 33% WR detachment that was letting me down.

Game 5 – Big T’s Votann

Take and Hold, Search and Destroy.

Tyson’s list (Needgaârd Oathband): Buri Buri, Memnyr Strategist, Uthar, 2×10 Warriors, 3x Sagi, 2×3 + 1×6 Thundussy, 1×5 Beserks, 2x Honkatonks, 1×3 Pioneers, 1×6 Steeljacks with Gun, 1×3 Steeljacks with sword.

Tyson was another local who I’ve played numerous times in the past. We actually went out to grab lunch together and realized we would probably be paired into each other.

“That’ll be a chill way to end the event,” said Tyson. Little did Tyson know, I was a fucking loser.

The layout and mission were awesome for me, and I was going second. I almost just had to sit still and keep taking the middle objective back off Tyson while scoring my secondaries and I think I would win.

But alas, I decided to attack. Even though I was ahead on primary and used some Oblits to deny Tyson 5 on the far objective, I still made it 1/2 through one of my turns without drawing secondaries. What can I say, I like to attack.

I stitched myself up a bit here when I was told almost everything would be -1 to wound (except vehicles) if my strength was greater than his toughness, which it was 90% of the time thanks to my Obliterators. This skewed my vibe maths and meant on a turn in which I thought I would mostly clear out some infantry, I did not. I also failed two 4″ charges in the same turn, bit cringe innit.

I could have played better, but it’s more fun to attack. Tyson played excellently as always, was very considerate and was an awesome opponent. We both had fun (I think) and it was an awesome way to end the event.

Thank Tyson x

BO 3rd year in a row, awesome. I’m very happy we have a local GT to attend and I hope they continue in the future.

While I thought Deceptors would be a one and done meme, I will definitely be exploring this detachment more and it will probably be my mainstay for the near future. It’s just fun, and sticky objective infiltrators forces interaction from your opponent which I love. I will run Dread Talons a couple of times just so I can say I’m a true Night Lords fan, but Deceptors is actually good enough to not hate myself when playing it.

Thanks for reading, cya nerds x