On the 1-3rd of November I attended the Risky Rollers Open (RRO). The RRO is Victoria’s only 3-day Warhammer 40k tournament and is way better than Adelaide Uprising. It features some of the biggest losers in 40k, and some really cool people that have travelled from Bendigo to enjoy 8 games of Warhammer 40k.

(Our glorious TO’s pictured above, and Ben)

The event was hosted by the Risky Rollers gang at the Manningham Hotel in Melbourne, which is definitely the best venue I’ve attended a Warhammer event at so far. The tickets included a catered lunch for all three days which honestly made a world of difference to how I felt throughout the day and allowed me to play Warhammer until 8pm each night.

I travelled with two mates to this event, Ryan (Not me), who I’ve travelled with before, and Aaron, who came with me last year. Ryan was having his last hurrah with his Tyranids before destroying them to place Space Wolves, and Aaron was playing Chaos Knights because he spun the wheel, and also, he didn’t want to play AdMech.

I took the Chaos Space Marines to this event, running the Dread Talons detachment. I learnt a lot about this detachment over the course of the event and think it could actually be quite competitive. I believe the list I took is quite good, which helped a lost to bolster a not great detachment. There are probably some changes that I would still make before I had my perfect Dread Talons list, but most of those are related to flavour rather than gameplay.

My list:

• Chaos Lord: Willbreaker
• Cypher
• Dark Commune
• Cultist Mob
• Legionaries
• Chaos Rhino
• Accursed Cultists
• Chaos Bikers
• Chaos Predator Destructor
• Chaos Vindicator
• 2×2 Obliterators
• 2×5 Raptors
• 1×10 Warp Talons
• Noise Marines

Last year this event used a pod system for the first three rounds based on ITC ranking, they also used strength of schedule as tie breakers. This year they used the Swiss system from the start with battle point tie breakers.

Fabulous changes.

I was bad at taking photos at this event. Ya win sum, ya dim sum.

Round 1 – Mark’s Adeptus Mechanicus

Hammer and Anvil, Purge the Foe

Mark’s List (Haloscreed Battle Clade): Belisarius Cawl, 2x Skitarii Rangers, 1x Skitarii Vanguard, 2x Skorpius Dunerider, 2×3 & 1×2 Ironstrider Ballistarii, 1×5 Pteraxii Sterylizors, 1×3 Serberys Raiders, 2×10 & 1×5 Sicarian Infiltrators, 2×10 Sicarian Ruststalkers

In the first Risky Rollers open, I played AdMech round 1. It was the only other AdMech player at the event – I was also playing AdMech. This year there are four entire AdMech players at the event. Thanks to every previous dataslate this edition buffing the faction they are now in a really good spot. Mark and I had messaged at length about his AdMech list prior to the event, going over some strategy and list building. Mark chose to ignore this conversation and spam Ironstriders and Sicarians, what a king.

I have played Mark once before (I think), he is an excellent opponent and Warhammer player. Although we only got to round 4, the mass of Infiltrators and Ruststalkers proved too much for the Dread Talons to manage.

My secondary draws weren’t fabulous, and heading into round 5 it was likely Mark would pip me on primary with kill more/hold more getting ahead. We called it at the bottom of 4 with a few minutes left in the round. Mark would go on to place 4th at the event, securing a top 4 spot after round 6 locking himself into the finals.

I’m not sure if there is much else I could have accomplished in this game. Going second on Purge the Foe is rough. I was able to indirect a unit of Infiltrators to death with a single unit of Obliterators getting me 4 Primary on turn 1. Having the Warp Talons not really come online until turn 3 when going first puts you a turn behind going second, and the 270 points not being on the table is noticeable, although forcing your opponent to play their turn 2 around your rapid ingress threat is impactful.

Onto game 2!

Round 2 – Jeremy’s Aeldari

Tipping Point, Scorched Earth

Jeremy’s List (Seer Council): Autarch Wayleaper, Eldrad Ulthran, Fuegan, Jain Zar, Lhykhis, Maugan Ra, Warlock, 1×5 Corsair Voidreavers, 1×10 Storm Guardians, 1×10 Dark Reapers, 1×10 Fire Dragons, 1×10 Howling Banshees, 1×5 Striking Scorpions, 1×5 Swooping Hawks, 1×2 Warlock Conclave, 3×1 Warlock Skyrunners, 2×5 Warp Spiders

Jeremy was playing Seer Council, a detachment I am very familiar with after being terrorised countless times (according to my tabletop battles statistics it has actually only been twice) by our local Eldar player.

Jeremy was running big bricks of sick nasty looking Aspect Warriors painted by his new, line of paints, OP paints.

Obnoxiously Pigmented Paints

He is creating and distributing these paints from Australia, locally in Victoria, being Victoria’s only miniature paint manufacturer and distributor. I don’t think he is in any retailers yet but is hoping to be soon. They looked amazing, and you can grab some at the website linked above.

Anyway, I was pretty familiar with how to get on with this match up, and with a wide-open centre it would be hard for either of us to score more than just our expansion objectives. Luckily Scorched Earth only really requires you to hold 2.

I was going second which was huge for Warp Talon stonks, if I could avoid the Jain Zar brick – which I did – this unit would be incredibly difficult for Jeremy to manage.

Jeremy would push onto my expansion objective, while defending his own, but did not have the resources to also commit to the centre. So, I ended up using the Warp Talons to rapid ingress twice onto the middle securing 10VP and then moving towards my expansion to delete the contesting threat. Rinse and repeat. I eventually lost most of the Warp Talons to shooting from Swooping Hawks + Autarch Wayleaper after using them the second time to score 10 in the middle.

A major turning point of the game was after I pushed my rhino up the bottom of the board, near the objective held by the Banshees & Jain Zar. Jeremy did not have the weight of attacks to get through the ACDC brick and instead attacked with the Warp Spiders & Lhykhis, flaming my cultists off my home objective, and the Jain Zar brick hoping to wrap my Rhino and stage forwards.

However, after the dust was settled in my turn Lhykhis was on a single wound in combat with the Rhino, and as half the Banshee brick & Jain Zar went into Cypher the Rhino was alive on two wounds. Luckily, Lhykhis got 3 wounds through, and the Rhino went down, allowing me to spill out my Chaos Lord & Legionaries unit, alongside the Noise Marines. If it wasn’t for this, they would have been completely trapped on my next turn, and I didn’t have any decent resources left to get through all the Banshees.

From here there wasn’t much Jeremy would be able to do to turn the tide. It was a very fun game, and I ended up chatting with Jeremy, and my next round opponent Leo quite a lot over the course of the event – they are friends outside of the event. They are great people, and I look forward to getting some OP paints to play around with.

Round 3 – Chong (Leo)’s Adeptus Mechanicus

Tipping Point, Linchpin

Chong’s List (Haloscreed Battle Clade): Belisarius Cawl, Skitarii Marshal, Tech-Priest Manipulus, Technoarcheologist, 2×10 Skitarii Rangers, 1×10 Vanguard, 2x Skorpius Dunerider, 2×2 Ironstrider Ballistarii, 1×6 Kataphron Breachers, 1×5 Pteraxii Skystalkers, 2×5 Sicarian Infiltrators, 1×10 & 1×5 Sicarian Ruststalkers, 3×1 Sydonian Dragoons

This game was played on stream: https://youtu.be/gvnhb8M52e0?t=27001

By popular demand – Laurence – I played this game on live stream. It was against Leo’s (English name) AdMech, and it was by far my most enjoyable game of the weekend, we had a lot of fun.

I don’t think I took any photos of this game. I was initially quite nervous about being on stream. I won’t go into any spoilers here as you should really just watch the video, I hope you enjoy it!

Round 4 – Bryan’s World Eaters

Hammer And Anvil, Take and Hold

Bryan’s List (Berzerker Warband): Daemon Prince of Khorne: Helm of Brazen Ire, Kharn the Betrayer, Lord on Juggernaut, Slaughterbound, 2×10 Khorne Berzerkers, Chaos Rhino, 3×2 Chaos Spawn, 1×3 Eightbound, 1×3 Exalted Eightbound, 2x Forgefiend, 2×10 Jakhals

This game was cursed, having to go first on Take and Hold against a list with 10 Warp Talons, not having a list which has the resources to stop the Rapid Ingress, and being forced to run straight at me due to playing World Eaters culminated in a difficult challenge for Bryan.

This game could have gone a lot of different ways, well, two different ways.

One of the moments that decided the game was after Bryans big push, a unit of Exalted Eightbound was on a direct path to my home objective. They chewed through a Vindicator and what remained of an ACDC unit and stood proud on my home objective. I shot a predator and killed the Eightbound leaving the character with the big dam enhancement alive.

In Brians turn, I overwatched it, scoring a 6 on my lascannon hit and getting 2 wounds through, killing the Slaughterbound. This flipped the game on its head. Instead of getting 15-15 in the last two turns, Brian scored a 10-10, similarly I score 10-10 instead of 5-5. Without this, I would have lost by a single point.

Alongside a hero unit of Raptors tying up a Forgefiend and battle-shocking it like 6 times, the Predator was the MVP of the game. Had Brian gone second, I don’t think there is any way I could have won this game. But saying that, who knows, I should really back myself more.

Thanks for the great game Bryan! I hope we play again soon.

Round 5 – Michael’s Orks

Search and Destroy, Hidden Supplies

Michael’s List (War Horde): Beastboss, Big Mek: Follow Me Ladz, Ghazghkull Thraka, 3x Warboss, 1×10 Beast Snagga Boyz, 1×20 & 1×10 Boyz, 3x Trukk, 2×5 Breaka Boyz, 2×5 Flash Gitz, 2×10 Gretchin, 1×10 Kommados, 1×5 Nobz, 1×5 Stormboyz

Michael is another person that I hadn’t played before. His Ork army looked fantastic, and we did a bit of pregame going over rules etc. This is quite important against an army that has like a 30″+ threat range with Ghaz and 20 Boyz, spooky.

I was going first, which I guess is alright? I can move up just enough to force Michael to Waaaggghh turn 1 which means I have three turns after that to crawl back after his invulnerable saves turn off. I deployed both units of Obliterators on the table in this game as I knew that I would get one round of indirect off, and then Michael would be in my face anyway.

Pictured below, Michaels turn 1 after he declared the Waaaaggghh and starts moving models directly towards my army.

Michael wasn’t really able to deploy without giving me line of sight on one of his Trukks turn 1 with a predator. Additionally, I drew tempting target, so I moved the rhino up the bottom of the board and disembarked the Noise Marines to secure the bottom objective.

If I remember correctly, I needed both the Noise Marine Blast Masters and the Predator to destroy the Trukk, the other Noise Marines fired and killed like a single Kommando, lol. This meant the Beast Snagga Boyz would disembark and be on the board. It would have been better if the Pred could have one hit the Trukk, allowing me to shoot Noise Boys at the juicy insides, but this setup an interesting play. I could use the Stratagem for full re-rolls to hit and wound in shooting on my Obliterators to indirect the unit of Boyz, and with -2 they would have 6+ saves. This was a pretty great play to have happen on turn 1, removing one of Michaels biggest threats from that side of the board early.

However, when I rolled the number of shots on the Obliterators, I rolled double 1’s. With blast though, this gave me 6 shots, and I still killed 5 boys. Had I even rolled like a 2 and a 3, or the average of 7, I may have been able to wipe the entire unit + leader. It was a bit of a letdown having the opportunity to make that play and then whiffing, but the Obliterators absolutely pulled their weight for the rest of the event.

From here I was able to screen my ACDC on Michaels go turn by wrapped it with Raptors and placing it a bit further back in a ruin. The Warp Talons also helped control the side of the board I was attacking.

At the bottom of 2, as Michael was making his turn we had about 30 minutes left on the clock. I quickly spoke to Michael, ahead of time while we weren’t rushing and discussed the fact that we may have to stop the game after his turn 3. I did not want him to rush, and not enjoy the game, and I wanted up to both think through our turns and play properly. I told him that I would continue to play as if there were 5 battle rounds left in the game.

Ultimately, we ran out of time and didn’t get a chance to play turn 5. We did, however, get through turn 4 and I was able to narrowly pull a victory out at 42-40. Michael had 3 units left, a single Flash Git, 2 Stormboyz and a unit of Gretchin. I don’t remember what I had but I would have been able to score max on my turn 5, and deny Michael from any points except his home at the end of the game.

This didn’t matter. Just because you can’t get to the end of a game of Warhammer in 3 hours, does not mean it’s not worth playing, and it does not make it any less enjoyable.

Thanks for the great game Michael, I look forward to playing you again.

Round 6 – Liam’s Leagues of Votann

Crucible of Battle, Terraform

Liam’s List (Needgaard Oathband): 2x Memnyr Strategist: Dead Reckoning & Oathbound Speculator, Uthar the Destined, 1×10 Hearthkyn Warriors, Kapricus Carrier, 1×3 & 1×6 Brokhyr Thunderkyn, 2x Hekaton Land Fortress, 2×3 Hernkyn Pioneers, 1×10 Hernkyn Yaegirs , 1×6 & 1×3 Steeljacks with guns, 1×6 & 2×3 Steeljacks with swords

LoV, yuck. Just kidding, I get to play my good friend Liam again! He had only lost 1 game so far and was in position to top 4 if he did well in this one. I wasn’t even close, my VP scoring had been horrendous.

Liam reserved a number of his Steel Jacks, and I was going first.

My only hope in this match up was to play super aggressively, bomb a 9″ out of DS on turn 2 with my Warp Talons to get ahead of the curve and keep the Steel Jacks far enough away from me until the end of the game.

I mostly succeeded in my goal, bombing a 9″ charge into the Pioneers in Liam’s backfield, securing my expansion objective for the entire game and holding down Terraform on 2 objectives for almost 4 battle rounds, but alas, I wasn’t able to get there.

Votann’s access to cheap scoring units meant Liam was able to score all of his secondaries and bull me off the primary with Steeljacks. He also had like every objective Terraformed at the end of the game and was able to score massive primary to catch up.

I had a lot of fun though, it’s always nice getting to play against someone you know and have a relaxed but close game. It was a fantastic way to end out day 2 of the event.

Round 7 – Anthony’s Death Guard

Crucible of Battle, Scorched Earth

Anthony’s List (Champions of Contagion): Biologus Putrifier: Final Ingredient, Biologus Putrifier, Lord of Contagion, 2x Malignant Plaguecaster, Tallyman, 2×10 Plague Marines, Chaos Rhino, 2x Chaos Predator Destructor, 1×3 Deathshroud Terminators, Foetid Bloat-Drone (Flamer), 3x Foetid Bloat-Drone with Blight Launcher, 3×10 Poxwalkers

From this point onwards I forgot to take photos, oopsies.

A new challenger approaches. I had not played Anthony before, but I had admired him from a distance. Now I got to admire him up close.

Thanks to our local meta consisting mostly of degenerates, I had a lot of games into Death Guard, but I had not played Champions of Contagion. Aaron had given me a quick run through of the list the night before, the main stratagem to watch out for being fight first for 1CP.

I was going first. It was crucible of battle and I deployed pretty much my entire army on the side of the board closest to Anthony’s board edge. I knew I wouldn’t be able to contest that objective with fight first plague marines behind the wall and I needed to turn the board into a Dawn of War deployment, using my Warp Talons to make the game unfair.

I had to leave a Vindicator out in the open near Anthony’s expansion objective to get at least 2 points on Engage on All Fronts, and he attack.

He moved his Rhino up, disembarking the Plague Marines and dropped the strat for full re-rolls to hit and wound. I was blissfully unaware of the implication of this event. However, Anthony whiffed the activation and did 4 damage to the Vindicator. Another 4 wounds came through from a Bloat Drone, and I saved all 4. This should have probably overkilled the Vindicator by double its wounds, but it’s better to be lucky than good.

I found out after the event that he would have only had Sustained hits if I was afflicted, it still had lethal hits & Crit 5’s thanks to the Biologus Putrifier. It didn’t matter though as the main damage dealers, the meltaguns got no wounds through.

In my next turn I moved my Predator back to shoot the Plague Marines and dropped Obliterators in to do the same. I spiked, and even after Anthony used +2 toughness on the Plague Marines, I picked up 8, and the bloat drone on the objective. Anthony played his other brick of PM a bit too safely, losing control of his expansion objective and applying no pressure to the middle, or to my expansion. Although he did secure my home point for a turn it did not matter, as I was able to re-take it and hold Anthony down to a 5 on primary in the same battle round.

Both of our secondary draws were a bit cringe, but I managed to get there just in the end of the game. Although it felt a bit one sided, I knew Dread Talons didn’t really have a way to push an advantage, so I was overly cautious throughout the entire game.

We had a great conversation about competitive magic and why we turned away from it to play Warhammer. Thanks for the game Anthony, I look forward to our next one.

Round 8 – Erina’s Adepta Sororitas

Search and Destroy, Linchpin

Erina’s List (Champions of Faith): Canoness, Daemonifuge, 3x Hospitaller, Junith Eruita, Morvenn Vahl, 1x Battle Sisters Squad, Immolator, Sororitas Rhino, 2×3 Arco-flagellants, 3×10 Celestian Sacresants, Paragon Warsuits, 3×5 Retributor Squads, 2×5 Seraphim Squad

No photos, sorry gang.

I had the absolute pleasure of playing Erina at the Bendigo Open a couple of months ago, and now it was time to run it back. Erina would have the opportunity to exact vengeance upon me with the righteous sanctification of 30 Celestian Sacresants.

I was quite anxious leading up to this round during lunch, I had 7 amazing games so far and I didn’t know if game 8 was going to be a great one. I had more wins than expected and there were a lot of competitive players at this event. That isn’t to say Erina isn’t a sweaty nerd, but I knew I would have a fantastic game when I got paired into them and relaxed immediately.

I actually thought I had a pretty good match up going into this one, but made a brutal mistake in my turn 1.

Erina pushed up some Seraphim to flame my ACDC and move block them while avoiding the blood surge. However, she staged a unit of Sacs a bit too close behind the Seraphim and I had sufficient movement to advance and charge past the Seraphim landing a huge blow and removing a unit of Sacs off the board in my turn 1.

I also pushed up my Rhino full of Legionaries, Chaos Lord, Noise Marines and Preds towards Erina’s expansion. I killed like 3 Sacs and did 3 damage to a Rhino. The Sacs behind the wall then moved forward on Erina’s turn 2, Vahl came in from reserves and wiped out the 600ish points of units for basically nothing. This was a huge error. All I needed to do was disembark both units near the middle in a protected ruin, advance the Rhino forward to create space and block Morvenn, while keeping the predator like 16″ behind the Rhino so it couldn’t get Melta’d to death. Then I would have had a Legionaries unit with a lord, Noise Marines and an entire Pred for the rest of the game.

I was honestly surprised that even with this massive error I was able to claw back a draw. I got lucky by exactly killing two of Erina’s Sac units, one with the ACDC and the other with the shooting from a Vindicator and a unit of Obliterators that rolled box cars for their number of shots. But I got unlucky at one point too by having a unit of Obliterators with full re-rolls to hit and wound in shooting failing to kill the last 3 Sacresants in a unit, woof.

Overall, it was a nail biting back and forth game, but the draw ended up being the best outcome for both of us. As a result, we were both able to secure best in super faction for the event – excluding those that placed in the top 4. What a cute finish to a fantastic weekend.

Erina’s list was sick, and now I’m going to stop being so salty about Champions of Faith Sac spam. That detachment is very cool and has a lot of play. If only I could force myself to paint an entire Sisters army again, sigh.

All my opponents were phenomenal. It was the best weekend of Warhammer I have ever experienced.

Now, because this is my blog and it mostly consists of shitposts and my personal ramblings, I’m going to talk about one negative incident during the event – I was not personally involved. It was a game that occurred between two players on live stream. I won’t be going into the any specific details of what occurred – you can find this information out if you want by watching the YouTube video – but it was the worst display of sportsmanship I have ever seen in a game of Warhammer 40k. I have spent a lot of time watching live streams of Warhammer games and have never seen anything quite like it before.

Although having a code of conduct in the player pack, and the player pack referencing the World Team Championship of Warhammers code of conduct, with TO final say, this game was able to continue on to its natural conclusion – with the assistance of TO’s.

If I were to ever find myself in a game like this, I would stop and not continue playing, as I have done in the past (this has only occurred to me once before at a tournament), likely dropping from the event and not returning. No one should ever have to experience a game of Warhammer like this, whether it be at an official event or casually.

The most disappointing part about the situation for me is that these players have been selected to represent the state I live in for competitive Warhammer 40k events. I have played Competitive Warhammer at GTs since June of 2023 and always looked from a distance at these teams and players. Since then, I have played many of them, forming friendships with some and having many excellent conversations with them at tournaments. Also, watching and supporting their games at the WTC, and other live streamed teams’ events in Victoria.

Many times, I have considered applying for the Victorian team, but after the display last weekend I could not possibly consider myself to spend time in an environment or be a member of a group that deems that behaviour acceptable.

Thanks for reading nerds, cya x