Last Saturday, June 6, 2026, I had the pleasure of playing in a Warhammer 40,000 Doubles Tournament at Chimera Gaming in Kitchener. The event also served as a fundraiser for the Alzheimer Society of Canada, raising over $1,200 for a great cause.
My partner was Derek, who brought an annoyingly hard-to-kill Adepta Sororitas force packed with elite melee units. I brought back my familiar Chaos Space Marines Soulforged Warpack, focused on effective shooting and cheap screening units.
Derek’s Sororitas list:
- Morvenn Vahl with 3 Paragon Warsuits
- 10 Celestian Sacresants (mauls) with a Hospitaller
- 10 Celestian Sacresants (halberds) with a Hospitaller and scouting enhancement in a Rhino
- 10 Dominions with 4 meltaguns
My list:
- Warpsmith (with re-roll all hits enhancement)
- Forgefiend (triple ectoplasma)
- Forgefiend (triple ectoplasma)
- Venomcrawler
- Venomcrawler
- Helbrute (2 power fists, 2 heavy flamers)
- 10 Cultists
- 10 Cultists
- Nurglings
- Beast of Nurgle
For the occasion, my rock concert-themed display board got a makeover to showcase our combined army as “Faith and Feedback”—a rather unusual collaboration between the Sisters of Battle and the forces of Chaos!
Round 1 – Victory (90-74)
Our first game was against Nolan’s Emperor’s Children and John’s Necrons. They brought two C’tan, two Daemon Princes, and a Defiler.
I was really pleased with how the Cultists performed, holding our home objective and making our natural expansion objective sticky on turn one. Derek got a Sisters unit onto the middle objective early. John’s terrifying and seemingly invincible C’tan were stuck near his deployment zone for the first three turns as Derek and I repeatedly threw sacrificial units into gaps between terrain to slow them down.
Derek positioned Morvenn Vahl and the Paragons near our expansion objective, and we held it all game. John and Nolan seemed reluctant to challenge that unit directly. My favourite play was dropping a Beast of Nurgle into their deployment zone for Behind Enemy Lines. The Beast then spent three turns distracting a Daemon Prince and a chunk of Necron infantry.
Eventually the monsters broke through into our deployment zone, but by then we had built a comfortable lead. Morvenn Vahl came out swinging and killed three major threats in a single battle round. A hard-fought 90-74 victory.
Round 2 – Defeat (70-84)
Round two was a tough one against Alex’s Raven Guard and Mark’s Iron Hands.
The Iron Hands list featured two massive Terminator bricks that kept bringing models back, while the Raven Guard had an obnoxiously effective six-man Centurion squad armed with lascannons.
My Cultists and Nurglings screened the backfield effectively all game, but Derek’s Paragon Warsuits were exposed early and fell to concentrated lascannon fire in the opening battle round. Our first few turns of attacks bounced badly, and by turn three Derek correctly described the situation as “grim.”
Turn four finally gave us a chance. We focused everything on one Terminator brick. My Forgefiend chose that moment to shoot like an absolute champion, while Mark’s saves completely abandoned him. One volley killed 9 of the 12 Terminators.
The Beast of Nurgle continued its MVP campaign, appearing in the enemy backfield for a large Establish Locus score and tying up an 11-man Terminator unit for a battle round. By turn five Derek had been tabled and I was down to screening units and objective holders.
Despite the loss, we clawed the score back to a respectable 70-84.
Round 3 – Victory (81-57)
Our final round was against Conrad’s Space Wolves and Darcy’s World Eaters.
Surprisingly, both armies were running a lot of tanks, though the World Eaters armour made perfect sense with the Goretrack Onslaught detachment.
Since we were going second, Derek and I quickly agreed to play extremely cautiously and stay hidden for the first few turns.
The opening battle round was mostly both teams manoeuvring through cover. I pushed Nurglings forward to slow down a World Eaters Land Raider and used Cultists as bait to create a shooting kill box.
As expected, Darcy launched a Rhino straight into the middle of the table and unloaded a large unit of Berzerkers into the Cultists. The Berzerkers were immediately vaporized by Forgefiend shooting.
Conrad also had a very scary tank, but Derek used Miracle Dice brilliantly to make a long charge and destroy it in a single turn.
The following turn, Darcy’s Land Raider crashed into our deployment zone and disgorged Eightbound, who promptly killed my Helbrute. Darcy then used a stratagem to load the Eightbound back into the Land Raider. Derek responded by surrounding the vehicle with Celestians and Sisters. They didn’t do much damage, but they trapped both the Land Raider and the Eightbound for four turns.
Meanwhile, I managed to yeet a Venomcrawler through an 11″ charge onto the middle objective for a pile of primary points.
The Beast of Nurgle once again earned MVP honours. It arrived turn three for Behind Enemy Lines, survived Conrad’s attempts to stop it with Fenrisian Wolves, and by turn five had stolen their home objective.
Final score: 81-57.
Final Thoughts
A fun day and a solid 2-1 finish.
To top it all off, Derek and I were honoured to receive the Best Painted Team award. A huge thank you to the organizers, our opponents, and everyone who helped make the event such a great day.
We’re only a few weeks away from the launch of 11th Edition, and this felt like a fantastic way to send off 10th Edition—with a bang.
