I ended up settling on a Valorous Heart based list, partly based on the resilience of VH seeming like it’d be useful, and also practically on the models I had, and the models I realistically was going to be able to finish in time, not lending themselves so much towards a pure Bloody Rose or Ebon Chalice/Bloody Rose list that seemed to be the most prevalent Order choices around the time. Build out the rest of the army, up to 2K, and try out some units and tools that seemed like they would work on paper. “This’ll be a good opportunity to get better and try out a proper tournament,” I thought. By this point, I’d built up a moderate Sisters army, but with lockdown, hadn’t really put any serious in person game time in, especially with 9th and the new codex.

Skip ahead a year and a global pandemic, and GHO UK was announced. When the new Sisters range launched in late 2019, I picked up the army box, and started building up an army as part of an escalation league I was running with a friend for our work group, and as an excuse to take a break from the Wolves. I’d dabbled in a few local tournaments through 2018-19, making a few unsuccessful attempts to take my Space Wolves to some sort of competitive success. Within my local group I’m often the one who’ll get asked rules questions, and have run a few small tournaments for the work tabletop group (I work in games, so fortunately have a good supply of people equally into playing 40K readily available).

I’ve always considered myself a decent enough player. Instead of a high intensity battle for the top tables, this is my tale of turning up to my first GT size event as a beginner to the competitive scene, and hopefully some reflections on the experience that will maybe give an insight into the experience for people looking to get into the more competitive end of playing 40K. This tournament report is a little different to the average one.

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