TheChirurgeon’s Road Through 2025, Part 1: Setting Goals and Testing Creations

Welcome, Dear Reader, to My Road Through 2025. For those of you joining us for the first time, this series is about as close as Goonhammer gets to a personal blog. In my Road Through series I chronicle my weekly journey playing competitive Warhammer 40k, talking about the games I play, the events I attend, the models I paint, and the week-to-week grind of trying to improve.

Previously on The Road

Last time around was the final instalment of my Road Through 2024 series. In these “End of the Road” posts I go back over the year that was and recap the entire year’s worth of posts. You can find other, prior year-end posts here:

• 2023
• 2022
• 2021

This is year five of a series I started back in 2021 with the goal of taking an earnest swing at competitive play. When I started, I was motivated in part by the return of events following more than a year off due to COVID, and partly motivated by a personal need to improve. See, at the time Goonhammer was in desperate need of more internal expertise when it came to writing competitive content and reviews and I was absolutely not a good Warhammer player. So in an effort to fix that I started playing more games, going to more events, and putting in the work to go from being a 3-3 player to an x-1 player. I’m still only barely there, but I’ve got a much finer appreciation for the game, and that translates to a much more credible ability to evaluate rules, books, and lists.

Likewise, over the past two years I’ve been steadily improving on the hobby side as well, and working more on improving my painting, in part with the goal of winning hobby awards. I don’t need external validation to improve and feel fulfilled, but competition is probably the strongest individual motivator for me and so that’s another reason to go to events and compete on the hobby side.

It’s been an interesting run up to this point, with a share of ups and downs. I’ve improved substantially on both the hobby and competitive play axes and as I head into year five it’s worth talking about what my goals are this year and what I’m trying to do. So let’s go there next.

This Year’s Goals

Last year was a pretty good year for me. I won my first RTT, made a top cut at a GW event, generally had some solid 4-2 and 4-1 finishes, and I won Best Painted (Master of Parades) at the 2024 Grand Narrative. That’s a pretty solid list, though there were still come clear gaps and places I can go. Here are my 2024 competitive play goals:

• Play 100 games. I played fewer games in 2024 than I did in 2023, in part because I didn’t play at Tampa, and I want to get that total up. I’m never going to crack that 200+ game ceiling – I just cannot make the time for that without giving up something more important – but I do think there’s still room for me to improve and add 20-30 more games.
• Attend 10 events. One easy way to get my games total up is to attend more events. Now that’s easier said than done in many ways – events are taxing and expensive and in terms of the ones I pay to fly to I’m pretty much at my limit. But I can certainly attend more RTTs and local events than I do, and so my goal will be to get more of those logged this year. Let’s circle back to this when I talk about the events I’m planning on.
• Win Best Painted at a GT or Major. While the Grand Narrative has the best trophy by far, I’d like to win another Best Painted this year at a larger event. I think it’s doable, but there are a lot of variables that go into this and I won’t be sad if I don’t win. But while we’re on that note…
• Win Best Painted at the 2025 Grand Narrative. Look, I’m going for this again. Winning two years in a row is very unlikely – I know they don’t like to do that and I’m gonna get way more pressure from Jack Hunter and MasterSlowPoke this year – but I’m gonna go for it anyways. And that means painting an entirely new army. More on that in a bit.
• Win a Golden Ticket. This year I’m shooting for a Golden Ticket. I mean, it feels like the logical next step in my narrative progression here, right? To that end, my best bet at this is probably trying to score Best Overall at a 2025 GW US Open event, as actually winning an event with my play isn’t super likely. But making the top cut of a GW event and getting a good enough paint score? That’s very doable.
• Log 10 games with my son. We only played like three games last year. I want to get him more involved this year in the play aspect.
• Help my son finish out 2,000 points. And likewise on the hobby side we have a ways to go as well before he has a full army. So we’ll get him to that milestone, too.
• 52 Articles. I came pretty close to 52 articles last year with my Road Through 2024 series, but fell short thanks to getting a slow start early in the year. My goal this year is to more or less churn out an article every Thursday for the whole year, and in the process I’ll probably get more than that goal number since I usually split big event recaps into 2-3 parts.

These aren’t hard-and-fast goals or anything – my year isn’t a success or failure based on accomplishing these – but they’re good milestones to shoot for and as I go through the year I’ll both track how I’m doing toward them and talk about how I mean to accomplish them. Similar to last year, winning painting awards is more than just “having a pretty army,” and so I’ll talk about what I’m doing throughout the year to hit those milestones.

Logging 100 Games

OK, so how am I going to make all of this work? Well, 100 games is going to mean more or less getting in an average of two games per week this year. I usually average closer to one per week, but events go a long way to making up the difference – if I hit my event goals (more on that in a moment), I’ll log around 64 games this year at events, which means I’ll just need to log 36 practice games in-between. That’s pretty doable, and if I can get the occasional two-game week for practice (or more), that’ll be solid. The good news there is that I’m already at one game played for 2025 (well, technically 2024 but I’m counting it for this year’s series), so I’m on pace.

The Events

More or less my plan is to try and log one event per month this year. My current hit list is:

• The Games Workshop US Open Events. These are great, and I really do believe GW has set the standard for events when it comes to terrain, judging, venue, and experience. I’ve been to all but two of these so far (I missed Orlando and San Diego), and I’m going to keep my current streak up. I’m almost certain this year’s events will include Tacoma again and Dallas, plus a mystery third location and the World Championships/Grand Narrative which I suspect will be in Atlanta again.
• The Challengers Cup. We’ve registered Team Goonhammer for the eight-player Challenger’s Cup in late September. I’m pretty excited about this one as we’ve got a powerhouse team set up for it.
• Wardome Houston. This is a new event series that started last April and I missed it because I was in England for the Oxford GT. That’s a shame, because I heard it was great and it’s super close to my house. That’s win-win in the sense that it puts less strain on my wife and also means it’s nearly free to attend, so it’s high on my list.
• Local GTs. I want to try and get in one or two more local GTs this year. Warzone Houston is probably out – it’ll likely overlap with or be too close to the Challengers Cup – but I’d do Rise of the Empire again as another team event and I was really impressed with the event they ran at Dragon’s Lair this year so I’d hit up one of those again.
• 3-6 RTTs. Any month I don’t have an RTT, I want to get in an RTT. There are a number of great local stores here that run pretty competitive RTTs, so if I can, I want to spend more time playing in those. The big challenge is just that they often fill up nearly immediately, and I’m not keen on showing up and hoping for a drop day-of.

That’s a pretty full slate! It’s more than I did last year, but I feel like it’s a healthy count, and hitting up some more local RTTs will be a good way to stay on top of things. That said, I also won’t be shocked if that RTT number is more like three than six by year’s end.

If I hit up all of those, that should mean playing more than 70 of my 100 games in just events, which would make hitting that 100 games number pretty easy. Speaking of which, let’s talk about the first game of 2025.

Testing Creations of Bile

Grotmas dropped a whopping 30 Detachments on us to play and test with and while the ones for Death Guard and Thousand Sons were just whatever, I was pretty excited about the Creations of Bile Detachment. It’s got some cool and very strong rules for the faction and I’ve spent the last couple of weeks thinking about how I want to build them. Generally speaking, when I sit down to build a Chaos Space Marines list, I almost always start with the same core, which is:

• Chaos Lord with Thunder Hammer
• 5x Legionaries
• 10x Cultists
• Chaos Rhino

There’s almost no list I’ll want to build that doesn’t have one lord with a unit of Legionaries and I’ll want at least one Rhino, plus I need the Cultists to sit on my backfield objective and sticky it early on. Everything builds from there. For the Creations, I’ll want Bile as my Warlord, at least for these early tests, and I want to favor units which really benefit from being in the army. Bile wants Chosen to act as his bodyguard, so at least one unit of five with him is an easy pick. The only wonky part about Bile is that he can’t fit in the same rhino as the Chaos Lord’s unit since his little helper goober puts the model count at 13.

For my money, the top unit pick for this is Plague Marines. With only 5″ movement but the ability to take three WS4+ Lethal Hits power fists per five models plus a blight launcher and two plasma guns, Plague Marines are one of the few units in the army that want every single buff the Detachment can hand out. After that, Obliterators are also very big adds here, and I really like the notion of bringing them back each turn via the Regeneration Stratagem. Warp Talons and Raptors might also work, and of course Possessed are the big unit to test here.

Based on all of this, this is the first list I built for Creations of Bile:

My First Creations of Bile List - Click to Expand

I’m pretty happy with this for a first test. The Obliterators have some real play here, though I’ll admit I very much want to pull +2″ movement most games with them to get them to 6″ movement (and plague marines to 7″). Because the roll doesn’t happen until start of game, I’ll usually want to hedge, putting one or two units into Deep Strike Reserves. The Possessed brick with the MoP are my ideal advance-and-charge target, and can pull off some nasty melee early in the game.

Game 1: vs. T’s Genestealer Cults

Mission K: Scorched Earth, Stalwarts, Search and Destroy

T is one of my favorite people to play. He’s a very chill dude, he knows the rules down solid, and he’s a very good player. Playing against him is always like a puzzle. He’s on an Outrider Claw list for this game and I’d be lying if I said this didn’t immediately strike me as a very good matchup for my Creations of Bile – I’m all about tearing up light vehicles and infantry, though the trio of Goliath Rockgrinders are liable to be a pian in the ass.

I’m Going First.

Also, I roll for my traits, and after re-rolls I end up with +1 Attack and +1 Toughness. Not amazing, but +1T is huge in this matchup, as it means the Plague Marines are T6, the Possessed are T7, and the Obliterators are T8. In fact, the only units with less than 6 toughness are the Legionaries and Chosen.

Going first means getting off some good first-turn charges will set me up big. I draw Overwhelming Force and No Prisoners, which are some great draws to have. I get out Bile and the Chosen and Advance them up the table toward a unit of Jackals. Meanwhile the Possessed make a beeline north toward a unit of infiltrating Genestealers. Unfortunately I roll a 1 on both advances, and this really hurts my turn 1 charges. I push forward with Obliterators and shoot the Jackals to death.

Killing the Jackals is worth the points but not really in my plan – I want to prioritize killing the vehicles and characters, since they can’t be brought back. If I take those out, the rest aren’t much of a threat – with my toughness they’re mostly wounding on 6s, and it’s hilarious watching a unit toss out 30 hand flamer hits and score 2 wounds against Plague Marines. I miss the charges I want but I get a key charge with the Chosen into a Rockgrinder, blocking T in a bit. Of course then I proceed to biff my rolls and drop the Rock Grinder to 1 wound. I bank 5 on Secondaries turn 1.

T fires back with a rough turn for me, killing a Rhino and a unit of Plague Marines plus the Legionaries with his Genestealers, though I use the Possessed to Heroically Intervene and wipe them out. He draws Secure No Man’s Land and Storm Hostile turn 1 and scores 9 VP for his trouble.

T started out hot but I manage to catch up on round 2 , with 7 for secondary objectives from Secure No Man’s Land (5) and Area Denial (2), and this is where I drop a haymaker, taking the three No Man’s Land objectives, dropping a Truck, and taking out most of the second big Jackal squad. It’s enough damage to put T on the back foot, and I supplement it by dropping Warp Talons and Obliterators in T’s backfield, where he’s left himself exposed (and also where I killed a bunch of Jackals and stopped his expansion. This stymies his attempts at dropping in with the third Rock Grinder, and the Master of Possession further helps by projecting his 12″ no-reserves aura.

This puts T in a bind on the following turn, where he now has to commit resources to killing me if he wants to win, but he draws Cleanse and Containment, and cannot afford to waste units on trying to score them. He blanks on secondary VP on turn 2 and that costs him the game. I start burning the objective in the lower right.

I stay ahead of T for a while but my dice are bad enough that T can hang around pretty effectively – it takes Bile and the Chosen three turns to push through a single point of damage on the Rockgrinder, while the other stays alive improbably at 2 wounds for another two turns despite me dropping cultists, grenades, and obliterators into it. T keeps the score pretty tight, though leaving all these dumb vehicles alive at 1-2 wounds means I can manage an 8-point Bring It Down Round four to pull way ahead. During these middle rounds I mess up pretty bad doing Overwatch with the Obliterators – I get too greedy, and take shots I shouldn’t, and at the same time I pact with a model on fewer than 3 wounds. I failed those pacts three times, and in two of those cases lost a model before firing, and I’d have been much better off just not doing a pact. So lesson learned there, I guess.

My turn 5 secondaries aren’t great – I can pull Engage for 4, but I Draw Defend Stronghold and it’s never great to score 3, even if it’s free. I need some good luck on Secondaries to stay ahead of T on the final turn, and I get it when he draws Defend Stronghold (unscorable), Behind Enemy Lines (unscorable), and then chucks one to get Establish Locus (unscorable). This keeps me ahead, 75-70.

Result: 75-70, Win

That was a hell of a game, and it felt like it shouldn’t have been that close, but T’s too good for me to ever expect a blowout against him. Having +1 T was a nightmare for him as it meant he spent most of the game bouncing off me even with high-volumes of normally solid firepower. +1 Attack was… more just Ok, to be honest. I had some insanely bad rolls in melee, which would lead to stuff like throwing 12 attacks with plague marine power fists at an Achilles Ridgerunner and ending up doing only 2 damage to it. But I also didn’t get to fight as much with the Possessed as I’d have liked.

Going into my next game, I need to take a good look at this list and figure out what I want to keep in it. The Obliterators felt great – getting back models at 80 points a pop feels amazing, like you’re playing up 240 points. The Possessed less so, but I definitely mis-used them. The Plague Marines also felt good but I really want to include a unit of Nemesis Claw in there at some point and as long as I’m doing that I probably want Cypher too. That said, I’m also going to run into a challenge as I build and test, and that’s “what do I want to paint?” I certainly could start testing 30-Possessed builds, but I don’t really want to paint that many possessed, especially given that’s usually a recipe for having your army nerfed out of existence. I’m also probably going to spend more time testing Obliterators and Plague Marines than I should because I have those already painted. Either way, I’ll look at taking a modified version of this to an event this week.

Hobby Progress

On the hobby side, I spent most of the last two weeks without a real clear direction on what I wanted to do list-wise. This left me with time to paint other stuff, so I decided to start working on terrain, and finishing off some things I’d had for a while. I started on Bheta-Decima last week, and I finished it all, including the large pieces from Salvation and Nightmare.

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I’ve had a bunch of Zone Mortalis Terrain a while, and I had previously lent it all to Greg “Klobansek” Narro, who started painting it and using it in his Necromunda campaign. He never finished, but he did a ton of great work on it and I decided it was time to finish it. So that’s where I’m at right now. I don’t have an airbrush like Greg, but I do have a bunch of painters tape and some rattlecans and I’m making pretty good progress on all of it.

It’s a pretty simple process – Kevin laid down the red with some black oil washes over everything. He’d also done some drybrushing and and bone panels, but the bulk of those are up to me, so I’ve been laying those down, plus painting the tops with leadbelcher, then going back over to touch them up, paint any pipes, and drybrush them all with bone. I should have the whole thing done next week.

Next Time: The Road Continues!

I’m excited to see where this year’s road goes – I had a blast writing last year’s updates, and it’s always awesome to see the feedback I get week-to-week. Check back next Thursday when I’ll have more thoughts on Creations of Bile and where I want to go with that list, and I’ll talk about what the decision making looks like when you have to make choices about painting and models vs. the optimal build. I’ll also have finished the Zone Mortalis terrain. Probably.

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