The first ever World Championships of Warhammer are this week and we couldn’t be more excited. As part of our event coverage, we’re interviewing competitors from around the world about how they secured an invite, their plans for the event, and what they’re hoping to accomplish.
Competitor Profile
Player name: Mikey Herbert (Hellstorm Wargaming)
Age: 29
Country of Origin: England
Where you won your ticket: Warhammer World Matched Play Event (August)
Q. Let’s start with the basics. What army are you bringing to the World Championships, and why did you choose them?
Space Marines babyyyy. More specifically, the Blood Angels variety. I’ve been playing my Blood Ravens chapter as whatever is *hot* that week since I started competitive warhammer like 10 years ago, so I’m bringing the *heat* this time in the Firestorm Detachment to really bring some *hell – storm*
Okay that last pun was weak, I’ll pack it in.
Mikey's list - Click to Expand CHARACTERS Lemartes (110 Points) Librarian in Phobos Armour (70 Points) OTHER DATASHEETS Baal Predator (125 Points) Baal Predator (125 Points) Death Company Marines with Jump Packs (260 Points) Inceptor Squad (220 Points) Inceptor Squad (220 Points) Inceptor Squad (220 Points) Infiltrator Squad (100 Points) Scout Squad (55 Points) Scout Squad (55 Points) Whirlwind (145 Points) Whirlwind (145 Points) Whirlwind (145 Points)
Blood Angels (1995 Points)
Blood Angels
Firestorm Assault Force
Run us through your list a little bit. What made you choose this list, and why do you enjoy playing it?
I feel like this list has a lot of punch and a lot of tricks, and by tricks I mean everything moves really fast and either shoots you in the face with an additional strength or spams an action that scores me a bunch of points every turn. I’ve always played Space Marines, due to their wide range of options, and I think most people are going to expect some version of Ironstorm build, whether its the obvious Redemptor/Brutalis spam, or something else – this list goes the other way with speed and options – whilst Ironstorm has a lot more potential with Stratagems and Enhancements available, Firestorm ditches that for speed and +1 to wound which can come in clutch when needed.
A lot of points are wrapped up in the Inceptors, which with Meteoric Descent, can be difficult to screen completely so opens up target opportunities other lists just won’t have an option to deal with or be able to screen out. It’s a lot of points sunk there, but since placement is a lot easier than trying to get angles with all 18 with the usual “more than 9” deepstrike, it’ll make my life easier in later rounds, as with so many games over the week, i feel stamina and fatigue are going to be large factors in the game as well as the caliber of opponent stood across the table from me.
I can’t take all the credit for the list, big love to my good friend Mike Duff who helped me finalise the list choice and stresses right up until 5 minutes before the submission deadline.
Post list reveal: I’m relieved I seem to be on a very similar track to other exceptional players who are also taking marines, but I think I’m one of a very small handful that is not running Ironstorm! Ironstorm was a serious contender, and the list is either firestorm that benefits all of the inceptors, or Ironstorm benefits the backline shooting from the whirlwinds, and I opted to boost the inceptors since they are such an integral hammer to the metaphoric nail in the coffin of my opponents!
What does the list do well against? What match-ups are you hoping to avoid?
I think Aeldari and Chaos are on everyone’s mind when it comes to “the scariest lists in 40K today”, and I think this list has legs against them. I’d rather avoid those match ups in particular, but I feel my list can do well against them. Wraithguard don’t like S9 3 Damage weapons, but neither do Nightspinners, speaking of there’s not many opportune targets to slow down with the Spinners outside of scouts really, so their artillery becomes a lot less scary, meaning the threat of early Yncarne teleports are reduced.
I’d be a bit nervous about a mirror, as I feel like I’ve theorised most matchups I expect and what I’d do against them already, but the mirror is a bit more confusing, not considering the fact I feel I’m well informed on the UK meta and army builds, but with so many different countries coming together, I’m a bit dubious on what to expect. An England Aeldari list can look very different to a US or Aus list, without even considering what they might cook up in somewhere like Korea or Thailand!
Fixed or Tactical?
Fixed is pretty safe if the opponent gives up an obvious secondary. Firestorm allows all units to advance and do actions due to gaining the assault keyword, so Deploy Teleport Homers and a Kill secondary is pretty safe, but also they have a lot of flexibility when choosing tactical because of that! Who doesn’t love a good Capture Enemy Outpost with so much in reserves? 😀
The World Championships of Warhammer isn’t the largest event ever, but it’s certainly the first of its kind. What was your road getting to the event like? Was it something you were aiming for?
I’ll be honest in my case it was more of a happy accident. I signed up to an event that was an hour down the road and I feel I got lucky and won it. Only when I turned up to the event did I realise a Golden Ticket was on the line. The benefit of living an hour from Games Workshop HQ does have its perks. I kinda wanted to attend as I thought it would be funny to qualify but didn’t think I had it in me so I just applied for my event to become a qualifier. To then end up traveling with players that won my own events is pretty special now though.
How does it feel to be going to the event? Are you nervous? Excited? How does it compare to LVO?
Nervous, as I mentioned above, I think the factions people will play are pretty obvious, but the flexibility of 10th edition makes me apprehensive of what each list will look like. The great thing about competitive play is the diverse nature of terrain and metas in a local countries scene, and that can greatly affect list composition. Whether that’s taken into account at this sort of event is unprecedented really with a wide range of countries being equally represented. Aeldari lists are unlikely to be equal!
How do you feel about the event’s unique country-based scoring? Does it add excitement to later rounds for you?
I actually think it sounds quite convoluted. I think communication in the media has to be key for people to be able to follow and find excitement from it. However I think the fact that the scores are game agnostic and it all comes together as a Team Score, is making me look forward to the comradery across all the games, rather than being quite separate like most events.
How do you expect the competition to be different from other events? Is there anything you’re doing differently to prepare?
Understanding Worldwide metas when everyone uses different applications to store lists and track events can make analysing a multitude of lists difficult, so I’ve resorted to prepping against the best lists I can locally, and mostly hoping people are on similar band wagons so I know what to expect.
How do you expect you’ll do at the event? What’s a “good event” look like for you, record-wise?
Before I saw the groups, I was hoping a 4-1 or a 5-0 in the pool would’ve been the goal, anything else is a bonus. Now that I’ve seen who’s in my group, that is now a pipe dream and I don’t know what I was thinking. A positive win record is the most promising outcome!
How do you feel about 10th edition competitive play heading into this event? How does the meta feel to you right now?
I think currently the Meta feels pretty solved. Aeldari and Chaos are the super powers compared to most other factions. Space Marines are still being figured out, and looking forward to new Codexes is hopefully going to be keeping it quite fresh – but the caliber of players are figuring out the best combos very fast, and people are jumping on the bandwagons just as quick – which is totally fine, it’s just a shame there is quite obvious power houses after a series of nerfs to both above factions. And with the reluctance of changing rules bar the quarterly updates by GW, as long as Phantasm and fate dice exist I imagine we’ll see some flavour of Eldar being dominant for the foreseeable.
I’m excited to be proven wrong, and I know I didn’t bring Eldar, and others haven’t and have probably built a list to take them on, which is super sweet – but they seem to be an obvious problem that you either lean in to beat, or just lose to.
Thanks again for taking the time to answer our questions. Good luck at the event!
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