Bendigo Bush Bash Bonanza, aka BBBB, is a 2000-point Matched Play event organised by Measured Gaming, and taking place 5th – 6th October in Bendigo, Australia.

With 41 lists submitted and a fully-licensed venue, this is shaping up to be a cracking event. BBBB will again have representation from multilple States, drawing in another big crowd to the Australian bush.

For many involved, this will be their last chance to rake in the rankings points before the cutoff for Australian Masters, so we can expect people to bring their A-Game.

In this article I have invited a group of guest reviewers from various different scenes to each hand-select one Power Pick and one Coolest List.

Measured Gaming will also be doing a full YouTube List Review show this Sunday 29th September at 7.15pm AEST, so jump on board – and the good news is, I’ve got Monday off work, so feel free to join me in the chat as I get pissed up and call everyone scrubs.

The full lists are available here on the event page, so to whet the appetite, here are our top picks!

The Pack

A couple of things to be aware of:

• Missions are not announced in advance, bringing balanced lists to the fore
• One nice touch that Measured have introduced to their events is recording in-game Victory points as part of your tournament score. So playing to the objectives is effectively the first tie breaker
• Like many modern packs, this event will disregard Realmscape Features

So with that context, let’s hand it over to our guest pundits!

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Frank DeLoach – USA

Frank is co-founder of the We Slay Dragons wargaming club in California, USA: WSD are regulars on the top tables of the ITC competitive scene. Frank’s videos are legendary in the Gloomspite Gits WhatsApp group, and also kinda NSFW.

Power Pick: Charles Black, Skaventide

Alright, this guy Charlie is coming with the dirty dirty rat filth. I’m into this list, it brings a few threats and creates a lot of board control. So let’s break it down. 

How the list works

Let’s start with the easy stuff, 40 Plague Monks… if you don’t know what these guys are doing by now, you’re sleeping in a sewer with the other ninja turtles lol. 

So with 40 Monks and 80 Clanrats, this list could pose problems for opponents, having the Screaming Bell backing them up granting battleshock immunity wholly within 13”. Sounds small but on that size of a base, it’s fairly easy to achieve.

That Screaming Bell took the spell Death Frenzy, allowing a friendly unit to pile in and attack when it dies. BRUTAL. The Bell also offers its Peal of Doom ability, giving buffs or damage dealing effects every turn.

Finally the Grey seer’s spell, Crack’s Call can wreck low movement units like Fyreslayers with potentially decent mortal wound pop. 

Now, Warlock Bombardier. This model is sick! Just wanted to get that out of the way, but what is he doing? He’s got a Doom Rocket, which is a pretty quality shooting attack. His Warp Lightening spell is kinda like a super Arcane Bolt, at 13” doing d3 mortals. You can supercharge it to do d6 mortals with the chance you possibly blow this dude up! How appropriate for Skaven. 

With his Command Ability (allowing 1 Skryre unit to reroll hits for shooting attacks wholly within 13”), along with his spell (allowing a Skryre unit to re roll hit and wound rolls), he becomes a quality buff piece. 

Verminlord Shenanigans

Let’s talk about this Verminlord.  Well, the Deciever is a beast! I love this guy.  He’s got a decent little shooting attack doing extra damage against units of 10 or more models, and in combat he can totally handle chaff to small to elite units. He’s got a 5+ DPR save, -2 to hit in the shooting phase and move 12” at full profile.

If this wasn’t enough (!), his Command Ability allows him to reroll wound rolls, he’s also got a spell… oh his spell.. Dreaded Skitterleap. Casting on a 6+ allowing him to teleport a unit with 12 wounds or less, then setting them up outside 6”… did you hear that?! 6” that’s so close!

Meaning he can use his ability to dump him self into range to drop his SUPER SWEET artefact! The Gnawbomb! Once per game, he can turn a terrain feature into a Gnawhole!!!! Did you hear that?! Turning any feature into a Gnawhole, allowing those Monks to get where they need, or those Jezzails to get that sneaky Hero.

The Wrap

This list controls the board, has quality shooting and combat, is solid in the magic phase and will keep the pressure up while maintaining objective scoring. 

Coolest List: Michael Clark, Mixed Order (Hallowheart)

Why I like this list

Why is this so cool?!  Well, Mike here has built a list utilizing the defensive capabilities of the 60 Phoenix Guard and the Anointed, whose Strategic Genius provides an extra Command Point at the start of the first Battleround.

Those guys are BRUTALLY tough:

• With a 4+ save (3+ in cover)…
• And a 4+ DPR save…
• And the Anointed sitting behind them, granting Battleshock immunity while within 8”!
• Not to mention rerolling wounds in the combat phase using his Command Ability

Then he’s got the quick and easy always breezy 3×10 Freeguild Guard with sword and board, rerolling 1’s on their saves.

Combat punch

Let’s talk about the punch units in his list. Mike’s using Fyreslayers to do this, they’re great units with again solid saves and quality damage output.

But you’ll say Frank, how’s he getting them there? Ahhh… here we go. 

So he’s paired both units of Hearthguard with a Smiter, allowing them to deep strike and it grants them a 4+ DPR save as well! See a theme? Hehe. 

Bringing it all together

Finally let’s talk about why are the hounds here? Screen and small time objective grabbers, for 20 points.. they move quick and have 2 wounds each! 

To round this out, he’s got an Archmage whose spell grants ANOTHER 6+ DPR in a bubble, and the allegiance of Hallowheart allows any unit to attempt to unbind a spell.

I think this army looks like a weird mash up, and in ways it kinda is. But when you look at the details, it’s well thought out and should do decently. 

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Joel Hennessy – New South Wales

Based in Sydney, Joel is one of the top Destruction players in Australia. Joel followed up an excellent 4-1 performance at Sydney GT (rocking a double Colossal Squig list, no less!) by taking out Best Destruction at Cancon 2019 with his Gloomspite Gits.

Power Pick: Joel McGrath, Staunchcast Eternals

How the army works

Joel is going wait to get charged, his opponent will bounce off, then he is going to counter attack.

Hard.

This army is tough, and has plenty of ways to put damage out. He has plenty of mobility to hit where he wants to, and if you try to castle up he’s going to drop a comet on your head.

Why I like this army

The big reason that this army is strong is because it is a brick wall, in a meta where so many armies are relying on high damage output units, with limited staying power (looking at you Skaven, FEC and Slaanesh). Joel is a very competent general also, having recently won a 1-day tournament with a similar list.

Oldcast is an army we rarely see these days, but they are tough as nails and not to be underestimated. The Desolators with Staunch Defender have a 2+ save rerolling 1’s, and 30 wounds of killing power, with reliable midrange MW output and insane melee output (5 Thunderaxe attacks each) that can’t be bogged down by chaff due to the Heraldor.

Good Matchups

Any of the Skaven Plague Rat lists – they won’t have the damage output to remove the big pieces and are going to be forced into combat situations. FEC is in a similar situation and will have a tough time short of amazing Terrorgheist rolls.

Bad Matchups

Lists with enough bodies to get on objectives quickly and hold them, while gumming up the board and preventing the list from playing for Objectives. All the while standing up to the punishment that this list can put out.

How I would tackle it

I would tackle this list by attempting to take out some of the characters, particularly the Heraldor and Castellant, preventing some of the mobility. From there, you want to try and tie up the Drakesworn Templar and Desolators – I play Gitz, so I have plenty of ways of applying debuffs.

Coolest List: Pat Nevan, Mortal Khorne

This was a toss-up between Alex Sobiecki’s Namarti Corps, or Pat Nevan’s Bloodthirster Lite Khorne Mortals. Pat’s Khorne Mortals won out.

The army has a ton of Blood Tithe to gain, and will look to throw buffed units of Bloodreavers across the board at you relentlessly.

I really like that this is an intelligent gamer’s army. This army in the hands of a bad general will not fare well. Having said that, as we saw at Cancon with Matt’s Khorne, movement shenanigans and good play win games, and I think Pat will do really well. There’s a lot that Pat will be able to do once he builds up some Bloodtithe and how he decides to use them will be very interesting.

I think this army can definitely go 4-1. I’m really intrigued to see how it goes up against some of the power lists in the tournament.

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Michael Thomson – Queensland

Michael is the founder of The Savage Northmen, a gaming group based in and around Cairns, Queensland. A specialist in Death armies, Michael went 6-0 at Cancon 2019 with his Nagash list, securing a podium at the world’s largest Age of Sigmar event to date.

Power Pick: Dalton Copeland, Gloomspite

Why I like this army

I have picked Dalton’s army for several reasons, one of them being that I know he is a good, tactical AoS player. We saw Dalton TO Badgacon in June, so I imagine he is raring to go for this tourney.

His army works on multiple levels: negs to hit, mortal wound output, run and charge mechanic and teleporting, just to list a few. This makes it a very versatile list: he can sit back and defend, or he can be aggressive and in your face.

156 wounds is nothing to sneeze at, with 100 Stabbas backed up by a Colossal Squig and Arachanarok Spider.

How I would tackle it

The way I see his list operating is that it all revolves around the Heroes: they will be providing buffs and holding the army together. If I played against the army, I would be getting those guys off the board as a matter of priority, to leave the Stabbas isolated without buffs and Battleshock protection.

Good and bad matchups

This list is so well-rounded, which is key when the Player’s Pack has no missions announced.

With the addition of Scuttletide and Geminids, Dalton will be forcing his opponents to really think about that priority choice.

Dalton would know better than me, but I would have loved to have seen Itchy Nuisance as a spell in his arsenal, for those tough matchups with Slaanesh (although negs to hit will help there). Skaven will be another tough match up for Dalton in my opinion, but knowing Dalton he will be all over that and I’m sure he has a plan laid out.

Good luck mate.

Coolest List: Michael Clark, Mixed Order (Hallowheart)

My selection goes to Michael Clarke: we see two units of Phoenix Guard buffed by two Anointed, with an Archmage and the Elemental Shield, as well as two units of Hearthguard and Runesmiters, giving Michael the ability to tunnel up.

With 4+/6+ damage saves, Michael’s army is the “Challenger 2′ battletank of the AoS world… he’ll be looking to bring units tunnelling up where you don’t want them, he has the bodies, and he has a lot of anti-magic. I think he has given himself a really interesting toolkit to work with here.

Unfortuately for Michael, there are a lot of Jezzails in this event, so he might struggle against Skaventide or the SCE Raptors. Nonetheless I think this list has a possible 4-1 in it, dependant on matchups and scenarios.

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Donal Taylor, Northern Ireland

Donal is one of the world‘s most accomplished competitive wargamers. His many achievements include a Top 10 at London GT 2018 with Stoneklaw’s Gutstompa’s Allegiance, and 5-0 at Facehammer GT 2018 with Mixed Destruction. Donal also ruined the Command Ability “I’m Da Boss, Now Stab ‘Em Good” for the rest of us forever, by unleashing Moonclan Grots with a Damage characteristic of 128 per swing on a world that just wasn’t ready.

Power Pick: Tristan Smith, DOK

How the army works

• Sisters can retreat & charge, ensuring the unit isnt locked or tagged in combat
• Bodies score objectives, and kill things
• 6″ pile in, 2″ reach of Sisters win Activation Wars

What makes it so strong

• Rerolls: Hag Narr 5++ rerollable after save, reroll hits/charges/wounds with Daughters Allegiance Abilities and the Hag Queen
• Lots of bodies
• Lack of ranged in the meta means that characters should stay safe
• Relatively low drop (for the tournament) so should choose majority of the time

Unique aspects of the list

• Double Medusa, double Hag Queen, 3 units of 30 is a different choice (rather than Morathi)
• It will be super difficult to clear off the units with this level of target saturation

Good and bad Matchups / Battleplans

• Good Battleplans: All the Battleplans
• Good Matchups: All the Matchups
• May struggle on Hero missions, as they lack a lot of Heroes. That said, they should be able to run the Cauldron into the middle, screen with Sisters / Witches and then put Heroes on the other objectives also screened

How you would tackle it if you saw it across the table

• Take out support characters (Cauldron / Hags) 
• Avoid the Blessing of Khaine unit
• Debuff them in combat

Coolest List: Peter Atkinson, Bonesplitterz

How the army works

Shoots things with arrows, makes friends and does damage with Big Stabbas.

What you like about it

Big Stabbas.

How well you think it can do

Probably 3-2.

Note: this is my own list, so thanks Donal for the vote!

I’ll do my best to Stabb them Biggly.

~ Pete aka Plastic Craic

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Thanks everyone for your contributions. And a big congratulations to Michael Clarke, with two separate nominations for Coolest List you win the prize…Make yourself known to me at the event, and I’ll buy you a beer!

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Tipping Competition

Frank DeLoach, USA

1. Matt Kent, Slaanesh
2. Hayden Frankhuisen, Slaanesh
3. Tyson Gleeson, Idoneth Deepkin

Joel Hennessy, New South Wales, Australia

1. Joel McGrath, Staunchcast Eternals
2. Hayden Frankhuisen, Slaanesh
3. Charles Black, Skaventide

Michael Thompson, Queensland, Australia

1. Dalton Copeland, Gloomspite Gits
2. Andreas Nicolay, Skaventide
3. Tristan Smith, DOK

Donal Taylor, UK

1. Tristan Smith, DOK
2. Lachlan McLean, Gloomspite Gits
3. Matt Kent, Slaanesh

Thanks again to all involved, and here’s looking forward to a rippa of an event!