Hey everyone, Reecius here with my post event recap of the awesome Cherokee Open 2026 event!
I played Astra Militarum after the crushing FAQ to Aeldari that just took the teeth out of the elfy boys. It was a marathon to get the army from new in box to battle ready in a month, but with a strict schedule of painting/building a bit before work and for 2 hours after work, I was able to get it done. Thanks so much to everyone that offered encouragement as well as those who came up to check out the army at the event! Check out the vlog, here!
Second, the event was really fun, well run and in a beautiful location. I 100% recommend it to anyone looking for a big event in the south east–or just generally–as we peaked at over 800 attendees and over 400 in the 40k champs! The vibe is chill and the setting is gorgeous, I will certainly be returning.
My objective for this event as I get my feet under me again was to focus on just one thing which was stopping my opponent’s from scoring Primary objectives. As the odds of me catching up to the current meta in a short time are low, I simplified things to keep my mind focused. The games I was able to execute my plan, I won, those I did not I lost quite badly, haha.
My secondary goal was to have a winning record and I am happy to say I managed to pull off a 4-3.
The List:
Grizzled Company
- Leontus
- Cadian Company Command: Medic, Banner, Master Vox, Plasma
- Catachan Company Command: Medic, Master Vox, Flamer, Heavy Flamer
- Lord Commissar: Abhuman Detail
- Gaunt’s Ghosts
- Cadians: G.Launcher, P.Gun
- Catachans: Flamer x2
- Catachans: Flamer x2
- Attilans x 10
- Chimera: H.Flamer x2, Stubber, H.K. Missile
- Chimera: H.Flamer x2, Stubber, H.K. Missile
- Kasrkins: P.Pisol, P.Weapon, P.Gun x2, M.Gun x2, Sniper, Bomb
- Kasrkins: P.Pisol, P.Weapon, P.Gun x2, M.Gun x2, Sniper, Bomb
- Kasrkins: P.Pisol, P.Weapon, P.Gun x2, Volley Guns x2, Sniper, Bomb
- Bullgryn x6: Mauls, Brute Shield x 3, Slab Shield x3
- Ogryn x 6
- Leman Russ Demolisher: M.Melta x2, L.Cannon, Stubber, H.K. Missile
- Rogal Dorn: M.Melta x 2, H.Stubber x3, Pulverizer, Opperssor, Auto-cannon
I used two command squads to get the Master Vox for the Commissar and Leontus which is a bit clunky but I found ways to use those units effectively to be the last wave of units to hit objectives in the final turns to flip them at end game, making them quite useful overall. I only had one unit of Cadians or I would have considered using a second Cadian/Command combo instead of Catachan but those are the models I had access to. The +1 to wound rule they have (in addition to scouts) came up fairly frequently to be fair, and it made Leontus surprisingly effective in melee. The addition of an Ogryn Bodyguard or Nork Deddog for more punch and the 4+++ would have been really useful, I am trying to find a way to fit it into my updated list.
The Winners
The Bullgryn were extremely useful every game, just very durable, solid in combat and the ability to give them Duty and Honor to go to OC 2 and +1 Leadership makes them the mainstay unit they are in Guard lists. Durable units are pretty hard to come by in 10th ed, so the ability to take a charge or flip an objective and take a punch was very useful.
The old mainstay Guard infantry were amazingly good and I honestly wish I had more. The ability to Move, Move, Move onto an objective from a good distance away was incredibly useful.
The Rogal Dorn was very strong, blanking one damage result means in the typical duals you get into with other tank killer units like a Repulsor Executioner, Tyrannofex, etc. which can one-shot a Dorn Commander, it is impossible with the standard Dorn which means you either get one extra turn to shoot, or your opponent has to commit more resources than they otherwise would to taking it down. The flipside to this of course, is that it cannot order itself so you need Leontus to fill that role. I was considering trying to fit in an Enginseer as the addition of a 4++ as well as repairing makes that Dorn massively more resilient in the matchups you typically see.
Leontus is expensive but the redeploy with Gaunt’s Ghosts, or just a mistake in deployment, was very useful. I was able to deploy the Ghosts to push back other infiltrators or Scouts, and pull them back. His +1 CP per turn, and 4 orders in Grizzled Company and ability to order Tanks means I never was short on buffs or strats and he is no slouch in melee, plus with 8 wounds, is surprisingly durable. By end game, as stated, I was sending the backfield infantry up on to objectives, often charging on to them, and with re-rolls of 1 to hit and +1 to wound from the Catachans, he was able to cut through infantry effectively.
The Kasrkins are absolutely amazing. I would take more if I could. They are so flexible, hit hard, look cool, and just generally rock. The ability to give themselves an order once per turn in any phase makes them able to do so many different things, plus they toss a mortal wound bomb at the beginning of any phase, truly an A+ unit. I ran two in Chimeras to take objectives or attack key units, and another in reserves to go where needed. With Move, Move, Move from Leontus on to the Chimeras, they had huge range. I ran the reserve unit with Volley Guns as I often was clearing trash units off of objectives with them and I found it more useful than the melta guns in that role.
Gaunt’s Ghosts are–probably not surprisingly to anyone–amazing. The ability to infiltrate, up-down, decent melee and shooting is just crazy strong. I often infiltrated them, redeployed, screened the backfield, and then deep struck them where needed later in the game. The ability to issue orders was just icing on the cake. Two thumbs up and a unit I do not see myself playing without. Plus they just look cool and have awesome lore as well!
The Ogryn were a great unit, I am surprised more people don’t use them. While they are durable, they are nowhere near as durable as the Bullgryn, but they hit like a truck once you get close. The trick is getting them into position. You have to deploy them very well. In games where I pulled this off, they were one of my best units dealing massive damage. In games where I deployed poorly, they got killed without doing much. When you pull it off though, they have a massive amount of shots and are good in melee as well, their potential damage output is literally double the Bullgryn. With an order they have a lot of options, and are beefy enough where it isn’t easy to take them out without a dedicated heavy hitting unit. For only 130 points for 6, I will certainly continue using them. Access to ignores cover and/or lethal hits makes their already potent shooting truly scary. After a bit of practice I was able to consistently get them onto an objective to utilize the lethal Shots strat but Ignores Cover was always good as they are essentially AP2 with their guns.
The Good But Not Great
The Demolisher was really solid for me. As I am not an expert at model placement I found my tanks often get tagged in melee and that was very annoying. So, I switched to the Demolisher who doesn’t care too much about that as it shoots in melee with no penalty, including the Demolisher Cannon. I played it aggressively, often reserving it, Tank Shocking into units and then shooting without penalty. Definitely a good unit but the random number of shots and shorter range limited its viability in some matches. Overall though, it is IMO, a better Vindicator as it has more firepower, and lots of options with Orders for what you do with it.
The Rough Riders were hit or miss for me. I Rapid Ingressed them every game which while typically the smart play was a mistake in some games. There were times I should have started them on the table as by the time they came in they weren’t able to contribute as much. Typically, they come on, hit one unit and hopefully trade up, then die. If you position them well, they can eliminate a key threat but with such a huge footprint for the unit it was not easy to use them well. Probably a skill issue on my part but I felt I didn’t need the unit, and more infantry would have served me better the way I was playing.
Potential Changes
Needing two Command Squads to get the best use out of the Commissar and Leontus was a pretty hefty points investment. I used all the units so it didn’t feel dumb, but was stretching me thin a bit. I think committing to either one or the other build (orders to Bullgryn or orders to tanks) is more efficient. If you go with the Bullgryn build, Dorn Commanders is going to save points, if you want orders to tanks, you can use Russes and Regular Dorns with Leontus to get orders, save points, have more CP and take advantage of the higher durability of the regular Dorns. I think both are viable strategies but by going one direction or the other you can get more juice from the squeeze. With the ability to refund CP via vox casters on most of the infantry, you can replicate Leontus’ ability to an extent, but you lose the redeploy ability which I found to be very useful. I will have to think about it a bit before the next tournament.
Speaking with other Guard players at the event, I saw some good combos such as using Scions with Scion Command Squads to hit units on objectives with re-rolls to wound and hits for highly efficient shooting. The 20 strong Cadian+Command+Castellan looked very effective as well. While I didn’t have issues with scoring objectives I did struggle to actually kill stuff outside of games against assault armies which were coming right at me.
I had considered going with two Vanquishers as for the points they have really strong shooting but the odds of one-shoting another tank killer unit aren’t great. I think it is a perectly viable strategy as they are cheap, but the Demolisher was certainly a lot more fun to play.
So I am messing around with some minor changes, I wish orders had a larger range then 6″ which is really restrictive. It is very hard to keep even two units in range for orders with a 6″ bubble, but really you can’t complain too much with all the options in the Guard tool chest.
The Games
I played against a very wide range of armies, and all of my opponents were very cool. No repeat matchups was a nice treat and speaks to the relative balance of the game compared to previous editions where we we see as much as 40% of the field be one army.
I played a cool Dreadnaught Custodes list game 1, and while he killed a lot more of my army than I did of his, I was able to keep flipping the objectives. We timed out and agreed to talk it out as I was up on points when we ended but we saw my lead would hold steady and I took the first game. Great opponent and fun game.
Game 2 I played a very strong Ultramarines list piloted but a skilled player. It was Terraform which I had not played before and to be honest, didn’t really understand the mission. My opponent was much more skilled than me so I am not sure it would have mattered but he went first swarmed the objectives, by the time I figured out the mission, it was too late, lol. I was killing things fine but it was irrelevant as by turn 2 I was too far back on score to catch up. Good learning experience all the same. Also, I was very impressed with the Redemptor Dreads, they are just durable enough, and are good in shooting or melee, backed up with RepExs, Vicitrix, Calgar and G-Man, that is a nasty army. This was the best illustration of how the regular Dorn has a place as his Repulsor Executioner would have one shot my Dorn but being able to blank a shot let me get another round of shooting and it managed to kill the Repulsor with some lucky dice.
Third round I played the C’Tan boogie man list and I have to say, that is a nasty army. While I only killed one C’Tan and I think 2 other small units, I kept flipping the objectives on my opponent and while I had very little left end game, I managed to pull the win. Again, super cool opponent and a fun game which helped me see the strength in sticking to a simple plan for a player just getting back into comp play.
First game of day 2 I played a really strong T-Sons list comprised of 30 terminators with sorcerer and Tzaangor support. That is a powerful army and it looks fun to play as well. Extremely durable, good at shooting and melee, plus surprisingly mobile with infiltrate and double move via psychic powers. I didn’t really understand what the army did, deployed very badly, allowing my opponent to redeploy an infiltrating Terminator unit right in front of me, and had never played on that deployment type which didn’t have much room for hiding. He got first turn and honestly, the game was over at that point as he was able to get angles on me and charge top of turn 1. All in, with my opponent additionally being a good player, I got crushed lol. Worst defeat of the event, and honestly I am not entirely sure what I do to win that game. Probably leave a unit in the midboard to push back the terminators and try to stay at longer range to shoot more? Not sure, he was killing my tanks in my turn with Overwatch and a Shoot Back strat. I am sure there is a way to pull it off for a better player than me, but that felt like the hardest game for my list to overcome. Not sure why more people don’t play the list as everyone loves Terminators and a list that is good in all phases of the game, likes going first and is durable is not a common combo.
My 5th game I played Death Guard, and Astra Militarum seem to have the right tools for that matchup in my limited experience. I played DG at LVTT as well and won both that and this game. My opponent was a very cool guy, we had a fun game, but per my overall plan I just kept flipping objectives and wasn’t too worried about killing stuff. With mobile, high OC units I was able to just feed them into the meat grinder until end game and stay up on the score. His units were cleaning me up, only the Bullgryn were able to hold the line (per usual) but being able to outscore wins games this edition even if you don’t do a lot of damage.
First game of the final day I played a super fun game against a 50 Berzerker World Eaters list. My opponent was a great guy and did his best in a tough match. The Ogryn, Dorn and Demolsiher were all-star units in this matchup, dealing massive amounts of damage. The Bullgryn took a charge from like 30 Berzerkers+JuggerLords and while they died, they absorbed all of it and held almost all of them up from being able to consolidate into my backlines. Berzerkers, even in the Warband detachment, could use a bit more oomph on the charge IMO, or maybe be a bit cheaper? Possibly not being forced to take 10 man units? Not sure, but the Bullgryn taking the majority of the charge and holding the line was the turning point of the game. Also, I have to give kudos to my opponent, we timed out (in combat from top of turn 1 with two high model count armies will do that) but was willing to talk out the game as while he was winning when we clocked, it was clear I was going to come up on the score in the last turn as he had very little left. Top sportsmanship there, and I hope we get a rematch in the future.
My final game I played a very skilled Tyranids player with a very strong list. 3 Exocrenes, 2 T-Fexes and tricky tech units like Deathleaper, Raveners, etc. I again deployed really poorly not understanding what I was facing, and the silly “rotate for more range” trick with the bugs with large guns overhanging their bases allowed him to shoot me in my deployment zone turn one. Not throwing shade at all, that is how the rules work, but it caught me by surprise as I thought I was hidden, but some of my units got popped top of turn 1 when I thought I would be hidden. Smart move to memorize those angles for any bug players reading this. I put too much in reserves in this game and realized I would not be able to score until turn 2-3 at best, unable to catch up and that was that. My opponent was nice enough to show me what he thought I did wrong and gave me some good tips on things I could have done differently. That was a weird one, definitely game me a lot to think about in terms of how to deploy better. Some of the terrain layouts in the game right now are a bit rough as well which is why I think we see so many shooty armies like T’au doing so well. With how lethal the game is, you just cannot be in line of sight or you are most likely dead.
Lessons Learned
The games where I was able to execute my core plan, I did really well. Games where I did not fully understand the mission or what my opponent could do, I got pasted. This edition is very much a knowledge game with understanding distances to objectives, weird tricks the other army can do, and how to position units. Deployment was my biggest weakness and that stems directly from now knowing what to do in certain missions or what my opponent could do. That will require more experience to fix but the good news is it is a fixable issue.
I did much better at focusing on the primary mission, staging units to continuously apply pressure on objectives and keep the score in my favor. In all, a fun time, lots to learn and it felt good to get a winning record as I get my brain back into 40k mode. Thanks to everyone that said hello and came out!