I just took my World Eaters to the 2026 Lonestar Open’s 40K tourney. Read along to see just how hungry and bloodthirsty they were!
This past weekend I got a chance to head out to Dallas to the Lone Star Open put on by the fine people at Frontline Gaming. I have gone every year they’ve had it and it’s always a good time. I end up taking my family as they like the hotel and the pool. It leaves me less time to chit chat for dinners and such but I enjoy having my kids around even if they are crazy. I ended up taking my World Eaters out again because the Disposition changes to my Emperor’s Children from my last event leaves me needing more units and having no time to get them painted.
Here is the list I decided to bring. I went with 2 close combat Defilers and 2 extremely cheap Forgefiends with Autocannons. They have the close combat head so they throw out 20 reroll shots at 18” and can charge you for another 8 attacks at strength 7, AP -1, and flat 2 damage. It is enough to wreck a small unit and make someone not want to just sit and tie me up as I can blast the jerks with angry bullets while in close combat.
LSO 2026 – Goatboy’s World Eaters (1,995 Points)
World Eaters
Berzerker Warband (3 Detachment Points)
Purge the Foe
Strike Force (2,000 Points)
ATTACHED UNITS
Attached unit 1
Slaughterbound (120 Points)
• Attached as: Leader (Character)
• Warlord
• 1x Lacerator and daemonic claw
• Enhancements: Battle-lust
Exalted Eightbound (265 Points)
• Attached as: Bodyguard ()
• 1x Exalted Eightbound Champion
◦ 1x Chainblades
• 5x Exalted Eightbound
◦ 5x Chainblades
Attached unit 2
Slaughterbound (135 Points)
• Attached as: Leader (Character)
• 1x Lacerator and daemonic claw
• Enhancements: Berzerker Glaive
Exalted Eightbound (265 Points)
• Attached as: Bodyguard ()
• 1x Exalted Eightbound Champion
◦ 1x Chainblades
• 5x Exalted Eightbound
◦ 5x Chainblades
OTHER DATASHEETS
Chaos Spawn (95 Points)
• 2x Chaos Spawn
◦ 2x Hideous mutations
Chaos Spawn (95 Points)
• 2x Chaos Spawn
◦ 2x Hideous mutations
Chaos Spawn (95 Points)
• 2x Chaos Spawn
◦ 2x Hideous mutations
Defiler (270 Points)
• 1x Ectoplasma destructor
• 1x Electroscourge
• 2x Excruciator cannon
• 1x Heavy baleflamer
• 1x Shearing claws
Defiler (310 Points)
• 1x Ectoplasma destructor
• 1x Electroscourge
• 2x Excruciator cannon
• 1x Heavy baleflamer
• 1x Shearing claws
Forgefiend (140 Points)
• 1x Forgefiend jaws
• 2x Hades autocannon
Forgefiend (140 Points)
• 1x Forgefiend jaws
• 2x Hades autocannon
Jakhals (65 Points)
• 1x Jakhal Pack Leader
◦ 1x Autopistol
◦ 1x Chainblades
• 1x Dishonoured
◦ 1x Paired manglers
• 8x Jakhal
◦ 8x Autopistol
◦ 8x Chainblades
LSO 2026 – Goatboy’s World Eaters – My Cunning Plan
The idea behind the list is just take 2 brutal bricks I can Deep Strike and have one unit try to get a 7 inch rerollable charge with the Battlelust Relic and the +1 to charge Blessings of Khorne active. The other unit would also Rapid Ingress or Deep Strike in. I needed to learn a bit more about ingressing into Hidden mode to help me with the list as it might have had me win a game instead of losing it to a great buddy of mine Noah in Round 4. We’ll talk about that as I get closer.
Before the games, I made sure to see a ton of my friends out there. A buddy from many years ago Baxter had come to the event with some brutal Slaanesh Daemons. I usually see him at Adepticon these last few years as I draw the logo for the team he is on. I also got to see a ton more Texas folk and those guys who live in Dallas. I got to pick up a Knight I need to fix for one of my Greg clients too. There are so many people there that I just like seeing from the Houston area as well. Seeing and talking to everyone made the event worthwhile all by itself!
The best thing about this event is really making new friends and just seeing old ones. My good buddy Rob from Tabletop Battles was there and he brought his wife and kiddo. They hung out with my wife and kiddos which is a great time. Rob is just one of those players that I meet and instantly knew I was going to drive him crazy in a game but we leave it as one of my best friends in this 40K hobby landscape. It helps he is another amazing artist so we can talk about art, movies, pop culture nonsense, and sometimes some 40K stuff. I said bye to Colin too many times, gave Max some old Broadband My Ass webcomic shirts, got to see my good friend Brandon, say hit to an exhausted Frankie & Jake, and a whole pile of other people.
Let’s talk about the 4 games I played as I left after 4 due to dreading the long drive back to Austin. I swear Waco needs to get their highway fixed asap as it easily pushed 30+ mins on the drive due to shrinking a 4 lane highway down to 2 with hills.
Round 1 – Brandon with a Giant Tyranid Monster mash list with 4 Norns – Take and Hold
This was a wild game. Brandon is local to me so I know the guy and he is a blast to play with. He is just a lot of fun and it is exciting to see he is going to Spain to compete in the world champs. This game was nuts as turn 2 I crashed into him with some Exalted Eightbound bricks and proceeded to not kill any of the Norns. I even got one with a Defiler. I thought I was cooked but then he did as bad as me which had me smack back. My Defiler in combat blew up. Then the Norn he was in combat with died and blew up. Which then proceeded to do a lot wounds to another Norn. My Exalted killed their Norn, which the blew up and killed the 3rd Norn. This left him with 1 Norn and a few things and I had a pile of stuff. Let’s just say Khorne at good that round and I ended up winning it 98 to 48.
Round 2 – Terrell with Blood Angels Liberator Assault Group – Take and Hold
On my this is the Mirror match with armies that have the same set of rules. He had two bricks of Bladeguard Vets with Sanguinary priests, a few Sanguinary Guard units with characters, a few Vanguard Vet squads, 2 Vindicators, some bikes, and some scouts. I had a bit more shooting but those Vindicators can do some damage. This time around I utilized my Defilers to hurt a few of the units but I was really worried when my turn 2 hit with my Exalted Brick didn’t do enough damage to his Blade Guard vets. I ended up rolling fight on death and was able to “trade” units a bit with a Defiler and some other pieces. I think I just survived the attrition battle and had an Exalted Brick get into a Vindicator to ensure I wasn’t getting wrecked in the game. It was a very blood affair and really I think some dice swung my way a bit as Terrell played it the right way. I won it 95 to 72.
Round 3 – Noah with his Votann army that was on the Tactical Tortoise stream – Disruption
Noah was a great opponent with two Land Forts, some Zerks w/Special Character, a brick of Hearthkyn Warriors, the Shooty Robots, some floating bikers, and a few other fun things. Those shooty robots can pump out so much damage it is gnarly. I got very lucky when he didn’t kill all my Exalted that crashed in and killed his Hearthkyn brick which let that unit not shoot me as much. I got lucky in a few steps when he didn’t kill at Defiler with shooting and had to try and get his Zerks out to kill it. An overwatch removed the entire set of Zerks with the Character just left alive. He wasn’t going to kill a Defiler which also meant the brick of 8 Exalted that failed their rerollable charge was able to Counter assault into a Land Fort and removed it. That unit of Exalted proceeded to run that side of the table and just kill anything they wanted too as the rest of the army ran around. The Moral victory for Noah was a Defiler was battleshocked for 2 turns. I blame those mean robots. I won this one 93 to 62 (and more importantly, broke my curse of losing on any stream I go on.)
Round 4 – The Same Noah I played at Heeyaw 2 weeks ago with his Dark Angels – Reconnaissance
Noah is one of the newest 40K friends I have made this last year or so. I played him at Warzone Houston a few years ago and just struck up a good friendship. We have seen each other in all the Texas events I have played at and we exchanged numbers because I got along with the guy so well. He borrowed a few of my models for this event and I just love how good he has gotten with his Dark Angels. He has been playing them forever and that I think it is awesome. He ended up going 6-0 and got 2nd place with this modified Dark Angels list. He has 3 units of bikers, Scouts, speeders, the Lion, and Azreal with some Sternguard. It is a brutal list and did a good job punching him in the face when he was a bit to close and my Defiler was able to get in, kill a scout unit, and then charge and kill a biker unit. I made a big tactical mistake by not deep striking my second unit of Exalted Eightbound and rapid ingressing them into Hidden. Noah stoically stood his ground, watched me kill another bike squad, and then saw Sammie and his bikes just break my flank and wreck me in the end. I think I was too timid after that initial fight too. I lost this game 100 to 77. Khorne was sad…
Round 5 & Round 6 – The Road Home
I ended up dropping after this because the idea of driving home from Dallas with my wife and kids at 7 o’clock at night was not looking to fun. I thought if I can get out of Dallas and get thru Waco before 4 I can get home right before dinner and have enough time to relax before going to sleep and getting to work early Monday morning. If I had beat Noah I would have kept playing but I dropped early and had lunch with Rob and his family. We talked nonsense as usual and got to get out of the hotel a bit after 1:30
LSO 2026 – Goatboy’s World Eaters – The Verdict
I think the list did pretty well with all the pieces working towards my goal and just playing it a bit more would help me out. I think the Exalted Bricks are amazing and wonder if I should keep both or think about an Eightbound unit with Invocatus to give me the same sort of feeling but with an Aura of +1 to hit and more attacks. I love the close combat Defilers with Heavy Bale flamer as a nice pain in the butt model for armies to play around.
Thank you Jake and team with FLG for putting on the event. Thank you to all the opponents I played who made throwing dice fun. Also thank you again to having an understanding wife who knows it is ok I am obsessed with playing with plastic toys and throwing dice around. My kids were pretty good too which is always a nice thing. I grabbed my flight for LVO this year so I will be out there as well as the Challengers cup in September. We’ll see what I play for the team as I am sure I need to paint up a few more things if need be or what might happen in August with a game update I am sure is coming.
SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE!
Don’t Miss:
Thomas Reidy, aka Goatboy, the ever-evil member of BoLS. I do arts, play 40k, and even paint a lot of stuff. I have been playing Warhammer 40K since the 1990s, and have won multiple national events including Adepticon and GW GTs. I’ve been writing for BoLS for 15 years. Look at my Instagram to see what I am working on – or working on for someone. I am always doing something hobby related.
Source: Bell of Lost Souls
