Power from Paint: There are no Wolves on Fenris...

... Because all the Space Wolves are mustering for Mayhem!

It has become something of a tradition once all the factions have been announced for First Founding's 40K tournaments for me to crunch the numbers into Excel for some Chart-Hammer to see what's popular and make a prediction about what will do well.

So how is Mayhem 2019 looking? The most obvious fact is that Logan Grimnar is calling the Great Clans to War with 4 Space Wolf players in attendance!

Thanks to Duncan for the pic of his Space Wolves

Here is the faction breakdown:

There are 16 different factions (plus one currently Unknown, hence "Lost in the Warp"), and I'm hopeful we'll see some variety in the lists within faction. From talking to some of the other players I know that's certainly true of some of the factions:

• The Dark Eldar are split Kabal/Coven, Coven and Kabal/Cult (the latter being mine)
• One Dark Angel list is Primaris heavy whilst the other has a large Raven Wing element

The comparison with Octoberfest is also interesting:

(Don't worry about the odd number of armies; one of those is the Odd Man list (Ad Mech) in case there is a no show).

A lot of the changes can be explained by the attendance of a number of different players; I think think this accounts for the rise of the Space Pups. A number of the regular attendees are bringing their regular armies (myself included), whilst some are bringing different forces this time round.

Nurgle has always done well at Mayhem so the lack of those icky hard to kill Plague Bearers is a surprise. Mayhem is allowing the Index version of Ynnari (the new White Dwarf version was ruled as "too close to the event"), so it looks like the Mad Cat Lady and friends will be getting a final hurrah! 

I'm a little concerned by the combined number of Guard and Knight lists as my list is a light on Anti Tank. On the other hand my list tends to do well against Power Armour and there's a lot of 3+ saves on the table.

So who do I think will do well and take home the trophy? Historically my predictions haven't been too far off the mark. For Mayhem 18 I predicted the Sisters of Battle (they came second), and for Octoberfest 18 I predicted a troop heavy list (I suggested Orks or Tau, but Joe won with his Intercessor heavy Blood Angels).

I'd love to see the Space Wolves do well; they are a very characterful army and always a pleasure to see on the table. Chaos are having a boost with the Shadow Spear and new Codex, but as these are recent releases I think people are still figuring out "what's really good" in them. 

I'm going to put my "virtual" pound against two different forces this time (both being played by previous Mayhem/Octoberfest winners):

• Necrons: Good Troop choices, shooting and assault options combined with loads of resilience, particularly if you are lucky with Reanimation Protocols (and this player is lucky!)
• Ynarri: A strong army, with an excellent tool box, being piloted by a good player

Regardless of who wins it'll be a good day; looking forward to playing some fun games and seeing some cool looking armies!