Hey, I’m back, probably for a bit, probably not.

Anyway, on the 3-4th of October 2026, I attended the 4th Bendigo Open Warhammer 40k GT. This event is held in the town, in which I live, excellent.

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 Drukhari at this event, a recent micro-fixation that apparently has only lasted until 2 days ago when I decided to run Ad Mech again.

I like Harlequins, and thought it would be a meme to run Purge the Foe Drukhari, so I ran the Reapers Wager detachment, with the Purge the Foe disposition.

My list:

• Lady Malys – Leading 10 Kabs
• Drazhar – Leading 5 Incubi
• Archon: Webway walker – Leading 10 Incubi
• Troupe Master – Leading 5 Troupe
• Succubus: Archraider – Leading 10 Wyches
• Raider
• 2x Venom
• Cronos
• 1×10 Hellions
• 1×5 Mandrakes
• 1×5 Scourges with Darklance
• Solitaire
• Death Jester
• Starweaver
• Voidweaver

It was a pretty cute list, fun to play with lots of choices and paths to aggression – which would be necessary since I was running the Purge the Foe disposition.

Purge is interesting, and it was the first time I was running it at an event. Although I’d had a few practice games with the primary mission in the earlier two weeks. You would think that teching your list for killing is optimal when you are playing a mission based around killing, but you don’t reallllly need to kill all that much to score your primary.

Consecrate really only requires you to kill 3 units to max your primary, especially as Drukhari is so fast you can do this quite easily. Destroyers Wrath is kill one, with benefits for kill more. I’ll admit that Meatgrinder is a bit of a shitfest, just table your opponent. Punishment is kill one in a specific location, which is easy for Drukhari, and Unstoppable Force is kill one, take one objective.

Drukhari is incredibly fast and has the ability to target an enemy unit and remove it from the battlefield with deft precision, irregardless of its location.

Wow, Purge is actually looking great for Drukhari, except for the mirror of course. It would really suck if I got the mirror 3 times over this event.

Round 1 – Aaron’s CK

Purge the Foe vs. Recon (Consecrate)

Aaron’s List (Houndpack Lance and Hunting Warpack): 12 War dogs, 4 Beasts of Nurgle

Now, I know what you’re thinking. How is he running that many Beasts of Nurgle without bringing Nurglings?

Well, his list was illegal lol.

No one realized until one of my Melbourne team mates pointed out the list wasn’t legal, not like it mattered, Aaron was 0-2 by the time he found out.

Aaron is someone that I know in the Bendigo scene and I grudged him at Terracon earlier this year, just for the meme I am doing it again.

This was honestly a terrible match up for me, all he had to do was put 12 War Dogs on the line and move them forwards until my army disappeared. But instead he slowly dripfed units to me which was super nice of him.

To be fair, it probably wasn’t that bad. Drukhari being super fast means you can consecrate 3 objectives pretty early on, the trade-off is that instead of conserving your units through going-back-into-transports shenanigans you end up losing the damage – but you score your primary.

I went up 99-81, thanks for the game Aaron. I look forward to grudging you again as soon as I possibly can x.

Round 2 – Riley’s BA

Purge the Foe vs. Purge the Foe (Meat Grinder)

Riley’s List (Rage-cursed Onslaught): Sang priest w/ Assault Intercessors, 1×5 intercessors, 1×10 DC, 1×10 DC w/ Jump packs, Mephiston, Techmarine, 1×5 JPI, Ballistus, DC Dread, 1×10 Infernus, LR Redeemer

Riley is a casual player from the Bendigo scene and a really nice guy, I had a great time pushing toys around a table with him.

Unfortunately, I was going second. I still scouted my Raider forward as Riley wouldn’t be able to get any decent shots onto it, and he scouted some DC forward with a priest or something, I don’t really remember what unit it was. Either way, he used a strat for advance and charge, rolled a 1, then failed his 6″ charge, lol.

From here I disembarked the Wyches around the unit and charged the infernus behind them, used the Solitaire to kill the JPI in the building and some combined arms to remove the unit that failed the charge.

This game turned into a total scrapfest, and I kind of over-extended, probably? It’s so hard to tell with Drukhari, but, I scored like a bunch of points and Riley wasn’t able to make up the differential.

The game ended 91-62 my way.

As I’m playing Drukhari more I often think the game is going excellently after a solid turn or two, then I look down and I’m like, where’s my army?

Round 3 – Harry’s WE

Purge the Foe vs. Purge the Foe (Meat Grinder)

Harry’s List (Berzerker Warband): Buff red dudes

Oh look, another Purge the Foe mirror, the only thing I wanted to avoid and now I’ve had two of them, SURELY I WON’T GET ANOTHER ONE.

This is the only picture I have of this game, and by the lack of Drukhari models on the table you can tell it was probably a pretty bad one, innit.

I was going first in this game, and Harry scouted some Eightbound towards me, which I thought was crazy given that I wanted to run at him anyway and he just made it easier. Unfortunately, this backfired a wee bit.

The plan was soundish, I picked up one unit of Eightbound in shooting, and 1/2 of the other one led by a Slaughterbound. Then I charged the Wyches into the Slaughterbound unit – with a single Eightbound remaining and used the lethal hits strat. My charge was low, so I had to string the unit out a little bit, and Harry heroic’d with a helbrute – this was expected – to force some attacks the other way.

I did get the Succubus & 4 Wyches, 3 with Gladiatorial and 1 with Power sword into the Eightbound unit, and left the Slaughterbound alive on 4 wounds, even with the lethal/sustained they had & the Succ re-rolling hits and wounds.

It was a bit grim, they probably should have died, and the 4+ invulns likely would have kept the wyches around through the Helbrutes attacks. But all the Wyches died and he resurrected an Eightbound closer to my army, leading to me losing like 4 or 5 units that otherwise wouldn’t have been touched.

So I went and got another Rum and kind of just got pretty drunk.

I lost 63-100, but Harry went on to win the event so like can’t be mad aye. It wasn’t even that far of a forgone conclusion after those events either, but, waddyagonnado.

After round 3 we went out to dinner at Okami and ate lots of Sushime.

Round 4 – Sam’s Imperial Agents

Purge the Foe vs. Recon (Consecrate)

Sam’s List (The same IA detachments everyone takes): Lots of dudes

I figured this match would be pretty good for Drukhari, I have lots of dudes, they move fast, I kill lots of his stuff, easy la.

I was going first too which was unreal, Sam opt’d to put like 1300 points in reserves after re-deploying his Deathwatch bros and I scouted my Raider forwards in attack position charging the Wyches into a unit that basically deployed on his board edge, lol.

I had a solid turn 1, but was pretty hungover and just yolo’d turn 2, going for like 4 8-10″ charges in the hopes of just shutting the game down.

My biggest mistake in this game was my unfamiliarity with Agents, I attempted to screen the entire board when all I really needed to do was screen 8″ from each board edge as only the Culexus had Deepstrike, oops. This let Sam get a few angles that I didn’t expect and claw the game back a little bit.

I also rolled double 1’s to charge twice in this game, F.

It was a 96-96 draw, but even then I should have won. I drew centre ground turn 5 and rolled a battle-shock test on a single Mandrake I just picked up, and failed. I didn’t realize until afterwards that I could have auto-passed it in reserves to finish the game at 100 points.

Oh well, this timelines better anyway.

Round 5 – Will’s Votann

Purge the Foe vs. Purge the Foe (Meat Grinder)

Will’s List (Idk): 3 Hekatons, 2×3 bikes, other shit

Purge, the one match up that is like favoured against me I played 3 times in a row. Purge Drukhari isn’t even BAD MAN. EVERY GAME SO FAR HAD BEEN WINNABLE. WHY DO BAD THINGS HAPPEN TO BAD PEOPLE.

This list was pretty rough for ya boy, I basically had to hope my Dev-wound bois Drizzle and Lady Malys rolled a bunch of 6’s to wound and 1 hit Hekatons. They did not.

Honestly, the crux of this game was just the Pioneers. They reliably pick up like every unit in my army individually with a single shooting activation, even though cover. They did more damage than the Hekatons lol.

It was funny watching Will crash out when the Hellions picked up his Terminators led by a somewhat mysterious 5 wound Kahl.

He was concerned he wouldn’t win until BR 5, I wasn’t. I even got a bit lucky with my rolls in this game, but not lucky enough.

The game ended 56-94 Wills way.

I ended the event 2 wins, 2 losses and a draw. What a great time.

I definitely could have played games 4-5 smarter, and just been a bit luckier in game 3 but that’s life. I kind of gave up playing to win after the 6th Rum.

After some dataslate changes I think I’ll be back to AdMech for a little bit now, I also can’t be assed death march painting more elves after painting all school holidays.

Thanks for reading, the next write up will probably be worse.

Goodbye xoxo