Warsmith's Words: Mayhem Preparations

Welcome back to the Vault! It's May Day and that means the Mayhem tournament is almost upon us, and I've been slapping paint on my last few models for the event. As I'm still trench-deep in painting Iron Warriors (and loving it!) it was inevitable I'd be taking the IV Legion to war.

Mayhem is hosted by my local games club (First Founding in Chessington) and has a reputation for quirky rules packs. This year is no exception; we are playing 3 games of Tempest of War with predeclared Primary Mission, Deployment Maps and Twist cards. To further spice things up we have had to pre-declare 5 stratagems from our Codex to use over the event in addition to the core stratagems. 

So here's my list:

+ HQ  +

• Lord Discordant on Helstalker [190pts]: Options: Baleflamer, Mark of Nurgle, Techno-virus injector
• Warpsmith [-2 CP, 80pts]: Options: Warlord (Architect of Destruction), Chaos Undivided, Relic (Techno-venomous Mechatendrils)

+ Troops +

• Cultists Mob [50pts] 10 Cultists. Options: Cultist Firearms
• Legionaries [105pts] 5 Legionairies. Option Mark of Nurgle, Aspiring Champion (Plasma Pistol, Power Fist), Heavy Chain Axe, Lascannon, 2 dudes with chainswords 
• Legionaries [105pts] 5 Legionairies.  Option Mark of Nurgle, Aspiring Champion (Plasma Pistol, Power Fist), Heavy Chain Axe, Lascannon, 2 dudes with chainswords 
• Legionaries [105pts]  5 Legionairies. Option Mark of Nurgle, Aspiring Champion (Plasma Pistol, Power Fist), Heavy Chain Axe, Lascannon, 2 dudes with chainswords 

+ Elites  +

• Chaos Contemptor Dreadnought [-1CP, 170pts]: Chaos Undivided, 2x Twin volkite culverin
• Master of Executions [ -2CP, 80pts]: Options: Warlord Trait ( Hatred Incarnate), Relic ( G'holl'ax, the Decayed), Mark of Nurgle
• Possessed [140pts]: 5 Possessed Options: Chaos Icon
• Possessed [140pts]: 5 Possessed Options: Chaos Icon

+ Fast Attack +

• Chaos Spawn [25pts]
• Chaos Spawn [25pts]

+ Heavy Support  +

• Chaos Vindicator [130pts]: Combi-bolter, Demolisher siege cannon, Vindicator siege shield
• Forgefiend [155pts]: 3x Ectoplasma cannons 

+ Stratagems +

• Grandfather's Blessing. Transhuman for Nurgle Units
• Tank Destroyers. 6s to hit auto wound vehicles
• Veterans of the Long War. Infantry +1 to wound
• Dour Duty. Iron Warrior Infantry, Core or Daemonkin -1 Damage
• Methodical Annihilation. Buffs Shooting (re-roll damage, shoot blast in combat, target unit sized doubled for blast)

I'm quite happy with the list; there's a decent balance between punching and shooting with a smattering of support units to screen or muck about with actions, etc. 

The stratagems are mostly general utility with Methodical Annihilation being "the trick" on the Forge Fiend. 

I'd really have liked to have taken the Daemon Prince with Nurgle Sword but alas, I could not afford the points; instead I've got the budget bully in the form of the Master of Executions (whose load out has been totally stolen from Jim H after our doubles game).  

It's something of a Vault tradition that I take a look at the factions being represented at Mayhem and then have a go at trying to predict the winner!

Well it looks like it a Power Armour Party with 11 loyalist and spiky Marine players in attendance! I'm not surprised by the number of Space Marines in attendance as a lot of people own such armies, and they are relatively strong at the moment given all the free war gear being given out like treats at Halloween.

There's no clear winner in terms of Chapter, with 6 different loyalist chapters being represented and 3 different traitor legions. I suspect we'll see more Marines on the day as the Dark Angels are suspiciously absent from the list...

There is a very healthy split across the different armies. There are 15 different factions declared (ignoring subfaction types), and so there should be an interesting variety of match ups for people; no playing against the same army list all day long! The diversity can be seen in the super-faction split as well.

So what do I think will do well? Loyalist Marines seem an obvious choice as they can lean into assault, shooting and movement, but with the loss of Armour of Contempt they may be more vulnerable than recent events perhaps.

There are a lot of strong shooting lists in attendance (Guard, Tau, Iron Hands) but this is balanced by a number of quite scary looking assault armies as well (World Eaters...). I'd like to see a decent list teched to the format take the event rather than an overly strong list that can just stomp their way to victory. So on that basis my predictions in no particular order are:

Knights of either flavour: fast, and capable of participating in meaningful assault and shooting. Plus lots of ObSec.

Eldar/Drukhari. Both lists piloted by very capable players and fast enough to react to the whims of the different Tempest cards.

At least one of the loyalist Marine players to do well. Head says Iron Hands. Heart says Black Templars because I want squads of Oath-ed up sword wielding Brethren to stab their way to victory.  

Let's see how well the Iron Warriors do and how my predictions fare next time.