Power Armoured Paint: Reading the Emperor's Tarot

Welcome back to the Vault! The list submission date for next weekend's First Founding Doubles Tournament has now passed, and all the pairings have been announced.  As is traditional before the club events I like to indulge in a bit of Chart Hammer, pretend I know something about 40K and make some predictions about who will do well on the day.  Let the punditry begin!

Xenos and Heretics incoming. Lock and Load!

There are 16 teams in attendance (32 players overall), so lets start with a look at the factions being represented by the various teams.  The rules pack allows for couple of odd combinations (Necrons and Orks teaming under a Xenos banner, and odd ball pairings under Mixed); this is to allow players to play with their friends regardless of the armies they own, rather than feeling potentially excluded from the event.

Wow; that's a lot of Imperium teams! The lack of Chaos teams is perhaps both a little disappointing and surprising given the popularity of the heretics.  The number of Tyranid teams is good to see, and I'm looking forward to seeing how well they perform on the table top.

Each player is limited to a single detachment from a single Codex so let's have a look at the individual selections:

There are 15 different Codexes present. That's brilliant news in the more general Space Marine meta, and whilst there is an awful lot of power amour present it's not all tied to the powerful Codex Astartes and the associated supplements. I'm sooo pleased there are Grey Knights present, and I'd love to play against the new Sisters of Battle.

Whilst Marines are widely recognised as *very* good, the Doubles attendees aren't in consensus to a dominant Chapter:

So what do the pairings look like:

There are some intriguing combinations that you wouldn't see in a normal game of 40K (remember the Xenos and Mixed factions I mentioned earlier):

• Tau and Orks
• Marines and Harlequins
• Custodes and Harlequins

I'd like to play against any or all of these; this would be a rare treat compared to most games!

It's also interesting that Double Marines (pure codex that is) are outnumbered by Double Tyranids. Is this a fluke, fluff or have some of the teams worked out some devilish combo for the tournament format? Knowing some the players steering the Nids my suspicions tend towards the latter...

So who do I think is going to do well...

We'll just pick the winners off the podium right?

Double Nids and Double Marines are strong contenders; my heart says Sisters/Custodes or Marines/Wolves. My head says Craftworlds/Dark Eldar:

• The combo is strong in this format (a similar team won last year's inaugural event)
• The lists are strong (I played them in a practice game last week; ouch)
• Both players regularly place well at Mayhem and Octoberfest; they are due a top spot

I'll report back after the event and we'll see how well I called it!