With our inaugural event Goonhammer Open USA fast approaching, let’s follow one man’s mad scramble to clear out his backlog, build as much Adeptus Mechanicus as he can, and draw some truly dumb art.
I’ve made mistakes in my time.
I clipped a curb and bent an axle. I missed a paperwork deadline and delayed graduating college by 3 months. “Surely,” I told myself, “that tree is far enough away from my gutters that it won’t cause issues.”
I bought a house with leaky fridge, a hole in the roof, and a human-sized wasp nest in the attic.

But none of these mistakes hold a candle to the one I’m about to make. For in the brief time before September 4th, Goonhammer Open USA’s first day, I want to finish a Skitarii Veteran Cohort.
Why? Why not.
A Veteran Mistake

Now this isn’t is as impossible as you might imagine. I’ve already amassed a pretty decent Admech army. However, that includes a lot of units that are not eligible in a Skitarii Veteran Cohort:
- 1x Belisarius Cawl
- 2x Tech-Priest Enginseers (I’m aware I can bring an Enginseer into a Veteran Cohort, but I’ve got 3 painted, which means I have 2 that are ineligible)
- 1x Tech-Priest Dominus (same restriction here)
- 6x Kastelan Robots
- 3x Cybernetica Datasmiths
- 10x Corpuscarii Electro-priests
- 10x Fulgurite Electro-priests
- 6x Kataphron Breachers
- 1x X-101
That’s a lot of models which’ll be collecting dust at home. But unfortunately that’s not all. I’m flying to Goonhammer Open, which means I’ll have to transport my army in carry-on luggage. Because of this, it’s possible that I won’t be able to bring:
- 2x Onager Dunecrawler
Dunecrawlers and their dinner plate-sized bases probably won’t fit in my luggage.
And That Leaves Us With

Less than I would hope. Give that the narrative event is using PL instead of points, here is where I’m at:
- 3PL: 1x Skitarii Marshal
- 4PL: 1x Tech-Priest Dominus
- 4PL: 1x Tech-Priest Manipulus
- 3PL: 1x Tech-Priest Enginseer
- 3PL: 1x Technoarcheologist
- 10PL: 20x Skitarii Rangers
- 10PL: 20x Skitarii Vanguard
- 10PL: 1x Terrax-Pattern Termite
- 8PL: 1x Skorpius Disintegrator
- 5PL: 1x Skorpius Dunerider
- 8PL: 10x Sicarian Ruststalkers
- 16PL: 4x Ironstrider Ballistarii or 4x Sydonian Dragoons
- 4PL: 5x Pteraxii Sterilizors
- 6PL: 6x Serberys Sulphurhounds
This gives me a grand total of 94 PL.
The narrative is run at 125 PL.
Well, heck.

So where do I make up 31 PL? Okay, let’s look through the backlog:
- 8 PL: I’ve already built and primed 10x Sicarian Infiltrators. This one should be easy.
- 3 PL: Another Skitarii Marshal seems like an obvious pick for this army.
- 6 PL: Two more boxes of Serberys Sulphurhounds. These models take a long time to paint, but it’s 1 PL per model. Seems like a good pick.
- 4 PL: Building another box of Pteraxii Sterylizors gives me a full unit of 10.
- 8 PL: I’ve got two more Ironstrider Ballistarii/Sydonian Dragoons sitting in my backlog. These are also exceptionally slow to paint, but I’m scraping the bottom of the barrel right now.
- 10 PL: Another unit of 20 Skitarii Rangers/Vanguard. As we say here at Goonhammer, hear me out. I’ve already got around 20 Rangers and 20 Vanguard each with their basic weapons. On top of that, I’ve got piles of Alphas, wielders of Data-tethers, Omnispexes, Arc Rifles, Plasma Calivers, and Transuranic Arquebuses. I legitimately might be able to pull this off just be rearranging wargear (good thing about half my Skitarii are magnetized!). I expect that if I do have to build models for this, it’ll just be a couple.
And that brings me to 133 PL! Heck, I’ve got some PL to spare! I usually get through three boxes of models every 2 months, and this is only a slight increase at eight boxes in 6 weeks.
No problem!
No problem at all.
NEXT TIME: MANY PROBLEMS!
IN ADDITON, EXPECT STRIFES, DIFFICULTIES, FAILED GOALS, AND MISSTEPS. TO FOLLOW ALONG THIS MAD JOURNEY, JOIN US FOR THEN NEXT INSTALLMENT OF PENDULIN’S ROAD TO GOONHAMMER OPEN!
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