On the 15-16th of November I attended Ratcon 2025. Ratcon is fantastic event featuring some extra mission rules and is a fun way to end the year. I got to catch up with some awesome people I’ve met at tournaments before and spend time with my friends, which is what Warhammer is all about.

My good friend Aidan decided to take Carnival of Excess Emperor’s Children to this event, so he spent most of his time walking around taking photos of the other Bendigo boys’ games meaning the photos I have for this event aren’t terrible.

Thanks Aidan.

The event was hosted by the Ratcon boys, Michael and Lachlan at the North Ballarat Sports club in Ballarat. It was a new venue, and they weren’t really sure if it would fit the vibe that they had created over the last few years at the previous venue. However, it turned out to be fantastic and felt exactly the same. There are a few kinks to work out, but hopefully this gives them the confidence they need to continue to expand and CONTINUE HOSTING EVENTS, at least until I get bored of Warhammer.

I travelled by myself to this event, because I am a loser.

After going 5-1-2 with the exact same Dread Talons list as the Risky Rollers Open – a fairly competitive event – two weeks prior, I decided to take the same list to Ratcon.

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

It took me a lot of brewing/testing to get to this point, and although I am running Dread Talons, this CSM list is awesome and works perfectly for my playstyle.

To that end, this is the advice I can offer you if you are interested in playing CSM, Dread Talons, or any other off-meta detachment/army:

• Figuring things out for yourself is the only freedom anyone really has. Use that freedom. Make up your own mind, Rico.

Round 1 – Hamish’s Tyranids

Purge the Foe, Search and Destroy

Hamish’s List (Subterranean Assault): The Swarmlord, Neurotyrant: Tremor Senses, Trygon: Trygon Prime, 1×10 Gargoyles, 1×10 Hormagaunts, Biovore, 2×5 Genestealers, Lictor, Neurolictor, 2×5 Raveners, 1×6 Zoanthropes, 2×1 Haruspex, Psychophage, Tyrannofex

I actually started writing up the third game before I remembered there even were custom rules at this event. So, these are the ones for this mission:

Mutation vs. Innovation

Before deployment, each player simultaneous selects one unit in their army to receive either the GIFT OF MUTATION or the GIFT OF INNOVATION

This unit then cannot join or be joined to lead/be led for this game.

The unit receives the following rules corresponding to their choise.

Mutation:

• FNP 5+ (If model is titanic/towering this is a 6+)
• Replace the attacks characteristic of melee weapons equipped by this unit with 2d3 (roll each time you select the unit to attack)
• When the last model in the unit is removed as a casualty, roll a D6 and consult the chart for the effect:
  • 1: Gain D3 command points, this does not count towards your limit of 1 gained per battle round
  • 2-3: All models in the unit that caused the last wound to be removed from this unit has OC 0 for the rest of the game
  • 4-5: The enemy unit that caused the last wound to be removed from this unit suffers 3d3 mortal wounds
  • 6: At the end of the phase, the unit is returned to the battlefield with D6 wounds remaining (this can bring back multiple models), as close as possible to where it died and not within engagement range of an enemy unit (This replaces any revive abilities or stratagems, i.e. Necron awakened).

Innovation:

• Replace the movement characteristic of this unit with 3d6 (roll each time you select the unit to move in your movement phase)
• When this unit completes a charge move, select one unit within engagement range and roll a D6 and apply the below result:
  • 1: Nothing happens
  • 2-5: The enemy unit takes d3 mortal wounds
  • 6: The enemy unit takes 2d3 mortal wounds
• Select one model to receive the below weapon:
  • Warp Lighting blast: A: 3 BS: n/a S: 12 AP: -3 D: D6 Range: 18″ Ignores Cover, Torrent, Devastating Wounds, Uncontrolled Blast: This weapon must target the closest eligible enemy target

Seems really cool right? Not all the mission rules are this impactful, some are less, some are more. But if you are interested in this kind of fun – which you should be – make sure to attend Ratcon next year!

I picked Innovation for a unit of Obliterators, and Hamish picked the same for his Swarmlord.

Having played against this detachment at a team’s event a few weeks prior and having just purchased a Tyranids army to specifically play this detachment, I was fairly familiar with what Hamish’s army was about.

He was an absolute queen running two Haruspex’s and a Trygon Prime.

Having a general understanding of this list, I wasn’t really afraid of any turn 1 damage if Hamish got the first turn, so I deployed fairly aggressively, being able to fix any mistakes if I were to get the first turn.

I ended up losing the roll off and went second, which would be a theme for the event, apparently. Although I do enjoy going first more as it allows me to control the tempo of the game – something I find hugely advantageous, getting to go second on purge against an army that desperately wants to go second was a pretty nice start to the event.

I ended up getting kill more most of the game, with Hamish and I tying for kill more on battle round 3, both killing 6 units somehow which let me pull far enough ahead on primary that I was able to secure the game pretty early on – my secondaries were fab too. We did end up playing all five battle-rounds and got to the end of the game with about five minutes of the round to spare.

The Warp Talons weren’t amazing this game, mostly being used to clear up the stragglers. As Subterranean assault ends up teleporting to my side of the board a lot, I was able to rapid ingress the Warp Talons into Hamish’s backline and get rid of the Biovore holding his home objective early on. I mean, he had completely overrun my expansion but, at that point we had almost swapped tableside completely.

The Highlight of the game for me was my Obliterators one shotting a Haruspex with their Warp Lightning blast before they even got to shoot the focused malice of their Fleshmetal guns, the other highlight was the other unit of Obliterators doing 24 damage to a Psychophage with the focused malice, bang bang.

It was a fun game, and I spent most of it wishing I was on Hamish’s side of the table playing Tyranids instead of CSM. I am looking forward to getting them on the table.

Round 2 – Adrian’s World Eaters

Take and Hold, Search and Destroy

Adrian’s List (Berzerker Warband): DP: Helm of Brazen Ire, Kharn, Jugg Lord: Favoured of Khorne, Slaughterbound: Berzerker Glaive, 2×10 Khorne Berzerkers, Rhino, 3×2 Chaos Spawn, 1×3 Eightbound, 1×3 Exalted Eightbound, 1×2 Forgefiend, 2×10 Jakhals

Twist Draft

Twisting battlefield:

When attacker and defender are determined, the twist draft takes place. The players take it in turns eliminating a twist each, alternating beginning with the defender, until three remain.

Play the mission with all three twists in effect.

A sheet with all 9 twists was provided, do not use GW cards, some of them may be… mutated.

Very boringly, me and Adrian ended up with +3 attacks for our Warlords – Lords of War, Adapt or die – draw extra secondaries twice per game, and Martial pride.

So, this twist draft affected our game, 0%, except for when we both drew extra secondaries twice.

This was the exact same World Eaters list that I played against at RRO two weeks prior, on the exact same mission – take and hold, and I was going second again, lol.

I had played Adrian before in an incredibly close game at the Geelong Town Open a few months prior, he’s an awesome guy and I was looking forward to playing him again.

Having played against this WE detachment a few more times since Geelong I learned to identify the tricks/strategies that it employs, and how to play around them. Specifically, sticking objectives.

In Adrian’s turn 1 he disembarked the Jakhals and made a ring around the centre objective, pictured below.

In our previous game I shot the unit off, and Adrian smartly stickied the objective gaining 5 VP, in this game I was wiser. I shot the unit – just a little bit – and committed a unit of Raptors to charge, wipe the remaining unit and control the objective. I think this was important on take and hold where I am very much being run down and probably wouldn’t be able to recuperate primary until much later in the game. It also means I don’t have to commit anything to the centre in the next turn to unsticky the objective.

This game was defined by Adrian sending waves of Khorne Berzerkers at my castle while I was able to use my Warp Talons to pick off the scoring units/Spawn holding his far objective.

Unfortunately, Adrian did fail a 6″ charge – with a reroll – to get into my ACDC unit with the Juggernaut unit, very grim. By this point, Adrian also had 6 CP thanks to Cypher and not really engaging with me all that much.

In my turn, I charged Raptors into the unit – plus everything else in my army apparently – and they got battle-shocked, so Adrian went up to 7 CP on the following turn.

One big mistake I think Adrian made in this game was not keeping the fight on death Blessing of Khorne active for most of the game. I don’t think he really needed the other damage buffs and it would have been incredible impactful as most of my damage came from combat, especially when he can 8″ blood surge the Berzerkers.

It was really fun to play Adrian again, his army is absolutely beautiful, and I look forward to seeing him at future events.

Round 3 – Tristan’s Space Marines

Scorched Earth, Tipping Point

Tristan’s List (Forgefather’s Seekers): Adrax Agatone, Apothecary Biologis: Forged in Battle, Captain in Gravis Armour: Immolator, Lieutenant: Adamantine Mantle, Lieutenant with Combi-weapon, Vulkan He’stan, 1×6 Aggressor, 1×6 BGV, 1x Company Heroes, 1×6 Eradicator Squad, 3×1 Land Raider Redeemer

Warpstone Coffers

This one is a lot to write out, essentially characters can do the burn objective on each objective, and when completed their unit gains buffs as determined by rolling on a table. All of this information can be found on the Ratcon Facebook page.

The reason I didn’t go into any detail, apart from being lazy is that I didn’t have the action economy to complete this action once. My opponent did, which actually benefitted him quite a lot, getting 5+ crit’s on his Eradicators and some bonza mortal wound bomb on his combi-lieutenant, dropping 8 mortals onto my Obliterators I deepstriked into his home field, lol.

If you want to learn more about another players experience with these funky mission rules, watch Dean’s recap of the event: World Eaters go UNDEFEATED at Ratcon GT.

I show up to the table, and my opponent informs me his entire army is deployed inside 3 Land Raider Redeemers.

He had three drops for deployment, what an absolute king.

This was another mission I really wanted to go first one. I believed against 3 Land Raiders I would be able to stage fairly aggressively turn one and then control the tempo of the game using Merciless Pursuit and tying up all three Land Raiders, pulling ahead on scoring and dealing significant blows all over the board.

I was going second, again.

It’s very hard to hide 3 Land Raiders on GW layouts, and on any other layout for that matter. I was able to pop a Land Raider in the first turn through the combined shooting of a Predator, Firing Deck Blaster Master Rhino and combat from a unit of Raptors. From here, the Warp Talons functioned to help dig out my army from Tristan’s pushes and I took over the bottom side of the board. Tristan never had enough movement to get onto my home objective while I took his with a unit of Obliterators.

Cypher was crazy in this match up. Every single time Tristan overwatched this game – which was every turn – it cost him 2CP. Tristan did joke during the game that he had 2 shooting phases every battleround, which was quite funny. The overwatch from the LRR is deadly, and almost one-shot my Rhino.

Tristan was awesome to play against, but I could tell the Warp Talons were getting to him by the end of the game. I had charged them into the big unit of BGV led by two characters and killed all but one character. I talked through the Merciless Pursuit combo, and he asked how he was meant to ever interact with that unit given they go back into reserves if they kill a unit, and if they don’t, I just charge you after you fall back.

Great game design innit.

Thank you for the game Tristan, and for also having the most based list of the event.

Round 4 – Liam’s Emperor’s Children

Hidden Supplies, Tipping Point

Liam’s List (Coterie of the Conceited): Winged DP: Pledge of unholy fortune, Winged DP: Pledge to Eternal Servitude, Lord Exultant: Pledge of Mortal Pain, 2x Lord Exultant, Lucius, 3×5 Infractors, 2×5 Tormentors, 2x Chaos Rhino, 1×3 Flawless Blades, 3×6 Noise Marines

Who wants to be a Rat-illionaire

Each player has access to three once per game abilities:

• 50/50 – Once per game the player can take any of the below rolls and instead of succeeding in the usual manner, it is instead successful on an unmodified roll of a 4+. You must declare you are using this ability before rolling, and can only do so for YOUR ROLLS, not your opponents. Hit, wound, saving throw, battle-shock check, deadly demise, and charge. For the charge the 4+ provided you the exact distance you need to complete for the charge up to a maximum of 12″. The target must still be an eligible charge target. This cannot be re-rolled or modified for any reason.
• Phone a friend – Once per game, the player can request the assistance of your close personal friends, the TO’s. They can roll an attack or save sequence for you or your opponent.
• Ask the audience – each player was handed a trivia question, during the game you could go and ask another player for their question and if you got it right, you got an extra command point that did not count towards your limit of 1 per battle round.

Liam and I both received our command points from the Trivia question, but did not use 50/50, because ever play that we made during the game had a better chance of occurring than 50%. We are both quite competitive.

Normally, after going undefeated day one or doing otherwise well at a tournament I start to get anxious about who I may get paired into next. One of my biggest – unfounded – fears is playing against an unfun opponent. However, this has never come to pass, and I have only played against excellent opponents.

It can be very easy to form misguided opinions about people just because they win a lot of Warhammer games, or because you haven’t played them before. Luckily for me, I surround myself with excellent people who are more than willing to talk these people up and leave good, lasting impressions.

One of those was a conversation I had with Ben Coubrough regarding Dean Sinnbeck’s World Eaters army. Ben was raving about Dean’s beautifully painted armies and his garage where he has his project armies and a full wall of Chaos and World Eaters, all painted incredibly well. It’s lovely to hear positive comments and wargamers talking up other players.

Liam is one of these people for me. He is someone that I’ve become good friends with through attending Warhammer events and chatting outside of events.

We don’t often get paired into each other, which means sometimes at a tournament I will say Hi to him at the beginning, and Cya at the end because we’re obviously a bit busy in-between. But when I do get to play against him, I get to spend a few hours hanging out with my friend which is why I play Warhammer.

The dice were all over the place in this game, it was incredibly close. I was going second, again.

I had a solid enough play turn one to deny all primary for Liam and potentially score 2-4 points on no prisoners. There was a unit of Tormentors that had stickied the middle top objective, and a unit of Infractors with a Lord on the top objective. I moved some Raptors across both, and a unit of bikers up the top, hoping to kill the Tormentors with indirect and charge both Raptors and Bikers into the Lord unit to remove enough and contest the objective.

Although Obliterators probably do on average kill 5 Tormentors, 1 remained after their fire, and I only had two Raptors on the point meaning it would remain sticky and in Liam’s control, this also denied me 2 points for no prisoners. He did armour of contempt one of the activations which was a smart move.

I charged the Raptors and bikers into the Lord unit, which passed battle-shock at the beginning of the first phase. I activated the bikers first to which Liam used armour of contempt, I think I killed like two of them. He then interrupted and using the Lords once per game ability one hit the unit of Raptors. He auto-passed battle-shock on this unit in his next turn and scored the full 10 on primary.

It was game on now. Had my play worked, and I was able to deny Liam 10 on primary while scoring 4 points I think this would have been an incredibly difficult game for Liam, but sometimes the dice do be doing what dice be doing.

Liam pledged 0 in the first BR. I always know when Liam really wants to win a game because he doesn’t turn 1 charge me with half his army.

Thanks to my plays though, Liam was on 0CP for his second turn.

In the 2nd BR he pledged 3 and went to work. I think he over committed here with charging the DP + another Lord/Infractors unit into the Rhino, but the Rhino lived on 1 wound after the DP fought – because I re-rolled one of the saves. This kept my Legionary unit + NM safe from any fighting.

One big aspect of CSM I need to work on is disembarking units before I yeet my Rhino off to move block/complete an action. If I had simply left the NM behind the building, they would have been in an awesome spot to shoot the next turn without the threat of being piled into after the Rhino died.

Either way, even though I think the over commit was a mistake, Liam needed to kill the Rhino to get 3 on his pledge, and to get full points for Area Denial. Without this it would have been pretty grim.

In my turn I used the Warp Talons to kill the last Lord/Infractor brick on my bottom expansion objective, leaving the Lord on a single wound. Luckily, I also charged in some Noise Marines, and the Disharmonist with the Power sword put 2 wounds on the lord, Liam failed his save, and the unit went down, allowing the Warp Talons to go back into Deepstrike. If it wasn’t for this, I think I would have lose the game on the spot.

The game came down to a play that happened in turn 5, I was able to rapid my Warp Talons in Liam’s turn 4 and in my turn take both no man’s land objectives off Liam while keeping my Talons on the board. They were strung pretty far across both objectives.

On Liam’s turn he moved his Tormentors off his home point, the Lone Lord Exultant and a DP towards the conga line of Talons to remove my last decent asset. He didn’t really have any decent charge paths due to me being able to pull out of combat with at least one of the units that charged after his first activation, and having enough CP for interrupt.

In Liam’s turn I was able to fall back the Warp Talons onto his home objective, securing 15 on primary and getting little area denial & recover assets to just pull out a win.

It was an epic game, and the dice definitely told a story.

The luckiest part of the game for me was the Obliterators getting a single 6 damage wound against Lucius, and Liam failing all of his FNPs, bang. The dive giveth and they taketh away.

I look forward to playing you again Liam x.

Round 5 – Josh’s Dark Angels

Linchpin, Tipping Point

Josh’s List (Wrath of the Rock): Azrael, Captain in Gravis Armour: Ancient Weapons, Captain in Terminator Armour: Deathwing Assault, Lieutenant with Combi-weapon, Lion El’Jonson, Sammael, 2×5 DWK, 1×6 ICC, 2x Invader ATV, 1×3 Outrider Squad, 2×5 VV, Callidus.

The final mission of any Ratcon is always a secret, they reveal the rules for the first 4, but the final one is a surprise. Generally, we are given a token/gift to use in this mission that represents a board piece. I had to miss 2024 due to Uni, but in 2023 we got this cheese token that attached to a character and gave it buffs. It was very cute. This year, we got the Warlock Engineer.

I mean how cool is that. You go to a Warhammer tournament, and you’re given a model that the TO’s made custom rules for to use in one of your games.

I was grumpy going into this one, sorry Josh. The break for lunch was at 12, we ordered lunch from the venue at 12:10, and at 1:15, 5 minutes after the round had started, we hadn’t been served lunch yet. I ended up getting it a few minutes later and ate it at the table, but it was a bit of a rough start. I was going second, for the 5th time in a row.

I don’t think I really liked how I played this game. I was trying to give Josh the best game I could, but I think I was a bit nitpicky. Other people are reflections through which we see ourselves, and this is only exacerbated in a game of Warhammer. I did not like what I saw, so I told Josh I needed to relax, had a chat with him about it and we proceeded to have a great game – in my opinion.

The rolls were a bit rough for him, which I’ll go into in a second, but for now, a story.

When I was at University, I got ZERO value from my lectures. None. Until I started reading all my lecture notes prior to the lecture and researching anything I didn’t understand. Then during each lecture instead of focusing on learning, I was able to focus on what the lecturer was saying and applying it to information I had already learnt.

Inadvertently, I take the same approach with Warhammer. I need to read the rules to understand them, when I understand them, I can play the game properly.

This came up in my game against Josh. I advanced a unit of bikers onto the bottom right objective (pictured above) to get a tempting target and deny Josh primary in his turn. I had played against Wrath of the Rock a few times now, and when it rolled to Josh’s turn, he used a Stratagem to give the ATV extra OC and control the objective. I hadn’t seen this before, so I looked the rule up on my phone to learn how it worked, and if it gave the unit any other effects. The unit needed to be in engagement range to use the stratagem. I told Josh, we rolled it back and everything was fine.

Warhammer has a lot of rules, and those rules often have stipulations (you will understand this if you play Dread Talons). Reading the rules helps you to understand the game. My aim wasn’t to catch Josh out using the rule incorrectly, it was to understand when he could use the stratagem, what units it worked on and how I could play around it, just as I had read his charge in my charge phase stratagem during my movement phase to ensure the bikers couldn’t be charged.

In his turn 2, he attacked me. Avoiding charging directly into the ACDC with his ICC unit due to the Warlock Engineering ‘turn off charge bonus in a building’, I did tell Josh after the game that he should have just done it anyway. With -1 to hit and wound from Azreal & Wrath of the Rock detachment rule, the ACDC fighting first would have killed a single ICC. Either way, in my turn 1 I made a bit of a wall with the Rhino and Raptors, blunting his charge and battle-shocking his DWK + Outrider unit on the way in. Due to an activation error, the Lion wasn’t able to fight, and I was able to disembark from the Rhino in a way to avoid the Legionaries unit dying and control primary thanks for the Raptors battle-shock.

In my turn 2, I killed the DWK unit, leaving the captain on a wound, the outrider unit + Sammael, the Lion, and the ICC leaving Azrael on full wounds. It was brutal. Josh had lost 1000 points of his army by the bottom of two, and I had lost a Rhino, bikers, one unit of Raptors, half an ACDC brick and most of a unit of Noise Marines.

I got incredibly lucky on the Lion, only one Vindicator wound got through dealing 3 damage, but a single Noise Marine with a blastmaster got 2 wounds through dealing 6 damage to the Primarch, then Cypher finished him off with his bolt pistol, lol.

After this Josh didn’t have the assets to stop the Warp Talons from jumping around and forcing him off other primary. He called the game at BR3 and said to just give me 100 and talk out his score.

This is wrong, I wouldn’t be able to score 100 due to the deficit in primary that had already occurred by the end of battleround 3 and my scoring going into turn 4. We did talk it out, and it ended up at 94-66.

Thanks for the game Josh and thank you for being accommodating about the round starting late. I look forward to playing you again.

That was it, my second Ratcon in the books, and the first event I had an undefeated run in. The cherry on top was that it was with Dread Talons?

And how did it feel?

Pretty much exactly the same as going 2-3, 3-2, or 4-1 which I have done at previous events, or 5-1-2 as I had achieved at RRO two weeks beforehand with the same list. I just like going to tournaments, spending time with my friends and playing boardgames.

This will be the last GT of the year for me, and although I have – in my opinion – had a good singles run this year:

• 4-2 Rataclysm GSC
• 4-1 Terracon AdMech (Dropped Rd 6 to go home)
• 1/2nd at a few smaller RTTs
• 4-1 at Geelong Town Open
• 3-2 Bendigo Open (Deceptors, made huge mistakes game 5)
• 5-1-2 Risky Rollers Open
• 5-0 Ratcon

I still explain away most of my wins by either luck, go first/second, match up, or mission. I think this makes it easier for my ego when I go lose, but how many games do I have to win before I start backing myself. I always feel the need to defend myself whenever I win, like I didn’t deserve it. Either way, this is where I peaked, at Rataclysm 2024.

I highly recommend you have a go and use these custom mission rules in your own games. They have the potential to create some incredibly fun and memorable experiences.

Also, shout out to Hugh “Bendigo open 2023 winner” Titchener. He always finds the time to come and say hi and events, throwing me more compliments than I deserve. We will get to play one day, and you’ll discover the rumours are true, I am a piece of shit. He also made a comment that now I went 5-0 my blog will be even more obnoxious, so he totally gets what I’m about.

Thank you for reading, don’t play my list.

Cya nerds, x

NB. I understand the “competitiveness” of Ratcon is dubious, this blog as ever is a recount of my experiences in the hobby. I am not going to defend myself for having an amazing weekend playing a boardgame with friends, and the incredible new people I meet each time I attend such events.