40K Fireside

Welcome back to Episode 48 of the Fireside 40K podcast hosted by Vik Vijay & David Gaylard of Team Ignite.

We attended the UKTC Manchester Super-Major last week, one of the largest super-major events in the global calendar. Dave continues his rampage with Astra Militarum, going through all the way to the finals, finishing in 2nd place!

Vik's taken to opportunity to try something a bit different with Grey Knights, going for a full vehicle skew with 3 Land Raider Redeemers!

In this episode we run through our list-build process, the meta, and our games at Manchester.

Grab a drink, sit back, relax and enjoy the episode. See you by the Fireside,

Dave & Vik

Hey everyone, Today I'm joined by Brian Siepp from team Ignite! Brian and I are going to Amsterdam this weekend to play in the 8 man team event in the Netherlands! Huge shoutout to Ruud for putting the tournament on. Hope you enjoy! #40k #warhammer #40kFireside #firesidepodcast #fireside Dave & Brian

Welcome back to Episode 44 of the Fireside 40K podcast hosted by Vik Vijay & David Gaylard of Team Ignite. Nothing stimulates discussion and consolidates thoughts like a competitive 40K faction tier list. With a bit of time to digest the latest balance dataslate, we discuss each faction in the game in detail and rationalise where we think they sit relative to each other in power level for competitive singles tournaments. As always, enjoy and feel free to leave a question or feedback in the comments! We're sure this one will generate a lot of discussion! Also, if you’re listening to this on a podcast platform, we’d recommend subscribing to the YouTube channel so you can see the accompanying video for this content! Dave & Vik

Winning Super-Majors with Guard! (banter alert)

https://youtu.be/m9bq91MXXqQ

Welcome back to Episode 46 of the Fireside 40K podcast hosted by Vik Vijay & David Gaylard of Team Ignite.

The Astra Militarum Saga continues! Just when we thought it was all over and the dust had settled, the downvotes had ended - Dave goes ahead and wins the South Coast Super-Major with Guard.

We run through his games, his list, his strategy and some of the cool micro-strategy he has been developing with the Astra Militarum. We also discuss potential reasons for the disparity between the statistical metrics used in 40K and the actual power level of factions.

Grab a drink, sit back, relax and enjoy the episode. See you by the Fireside,

Dave & Vik

*Apologies, new software, bad audio quality*

Welcome back to Episode 45 of the Fireside 40K podcast hosted by Vik Vijay & David Gaylard of Team Ignite. We thought we'd mix it up this time and go back to our roots with a podcast audio episode where we'll be doing a tournament recap of the Northampton GT from this past weekend. Vik went with a hyper-MSU post-dataslate version of Aeldari and Dave continues to innovate & refine his Astra Militarum. Listen in to see how we got on and our take-aways from the event! We created quite a storm in our Post-Dataslate Tier List (check out episode 44 - the previous one!) by putting Astra Militarum right up there in the top tier. It's been a journey following the internet's response to that one and we put out a little rant in this episode about the peculiar way the 40K community responds to these kinds of things and whether we think anything has changed with our opinion on the tier list. Grab a drink, sit back, relax and enjoy the episode! Dave & Vik

Welcome back to Episode 43 of the Fireside 40K podcast hosted by Vik Vijay & David Gaylard of Team Ignite. The moment we've been waiting for is here! The first Dataslate of 2024 has dropped and has exceeded our expectations with how comprehensive the changes are. This episode we go through the key changes for the previously strongest/weakest armies in the meta as well as the armies that we personally play (Vik= Sisters + GK + Drukhari + CSM + Aeldari, Dave= Necrons + Guard + Daemons + Aeldari). We also discuss where we think the overall meta may end up and which armies we think will be dominant in this quarter. As always, enjoy and feel free to leave a question or feedback in the comments! Also, if you’re listening to this on a podcast platform, we’d recommend subscribing to the YouTube channel so you can see the accompanying video for this content! Dave & Vik

Hey guys! First time we're here doing a two person recap on the meta + we discuss lists from the Nottingham super major coming up this weekend! Please let us know if you have some feedback for this format :) And yes, I tried to play Jazz through my speakers, and honestly I was worried that I was going to get copyright flagged!

Welcome back to Episode 41 of the Fireside 40K podcast hosted by Vik Vijay & David Gaylard of Team Ignite. It’s been a while but Vik is back to catch-up with Dave on the latest 40K super majors we’ve attended (Coventry and Leicester) and how we got on. We focus on our main take aways from these tournaments and the lessons we continue to learn on how to be better competitive 40K players. With the recent release of Necrons (check out Dave’s review at https://youtu.be/uNiE6hZbSB0?si=8H8530KGoAAU6xsE) and Ad Mech, we discuss where we think they sit in the meta and their relative power levels. We also chat about the things we expect to see in the balance dataslate and where we predict the meta might end up. As always, enjoy and feel free to leave a question or feedback in the comments! Also, if you’re listening to this on a podcast platform, we’d recommend subscribing to the YouTube channel as we play to do a lot more live content on there in 2024! Dave & Vik

Hey there everyone, trying a new thing this time :) Thought I'd cover the new Necrons release! I've been a Necron fan for alittle while and they're an army I really enjoy - mainly because I enjoyed reducing the amount of fun my opponent had! Hope you guys like the new format, and sorry about that scrolling ticker the entire time. Feedback would be really appreciated so we could improve on this format!

Recap of the WCW :)

Welcome back to Episode 38 of the Fireside 40K podcast hosted by Vik Vijay & David Gaylard of Team Ignite. It's been a bit quiet on the 40K scene as we close in on the Warhammer World Championship in Atlanta next weekend - with Team Ignite sending almost the entire team across, we catch up on what we've been practicing since LGT and where are minds are at regarding the current meta. Dave, Chris Radford and Boris Michev took down a 4-man team event in Cardiff, we do a recap of the event and discuss why we think team events have had such a surge in popularity. Vik is bringing the Adepta Sororitas to the Cardiff Super-Major and discusses the thought process behind his list design and why he thinks Sisters are secretly one of the best factions in the game! As always, enjoy and feel free to leave a question or feedback in the comments! Dave & Vik

Welcome back to Episode 37 of the Fireside 40K podcast hosted by Vik Vijay & David Gaylard of Team Ignite. We've got special guest Liam VSL of Team Ignite with us for this episode who, this past weekend, became the 2023 LGT Champion. We could not be more happy for his success as we've long held the opinion that Liam VSL is one of the most technically gifted / talented players in the world. He runs through the Chaos Space Marine list he brought to the event and the run that led to his name being engraved on the LGT Trophy. LGT was a huge event for Team Ignite with all 8 of our players participating in some part of the event and going 4-1 (our newest member, Majson of WTC winning Team Poland, playing in the invitationals and judging the main event). Chris Radford took CSM through to 6-0 before losing in the shadow round to finish in 9th Place, and Vik took Aeldari through to the Quarter-Finals losing to Liam VSL, finishing in 5th Place. Dave and Vik also do a quick run-through of their run and thoughts on their Astra Militarum / Aeldari lists respectively. As always, enjoy and feel free to leave a question or feedback in the comments! Dave, Vik & Liam

Hey All, Welcome back to Episode 36 of the Fireside 40K podcast hosted by Vik Vijay & David Gaylard of Team Ignite. We've had our first balance dataslate of 10th Edition which has brought a whole host of game-wide rules changes and impactful points changes across the entire range of armies. We've taken the past few weeks to practice and gather our thoughts on where we think things will settle on the meta. With LGT this weekend, we think this is the perfect time to analyse our practice data and see how it compares to the faction representation at LGT. Vik's back on Aeldari for LGT and Dave's on his favourite Astra Militarum with lots of innovation, we go through our lists and the decision points of why we made the choices we did. The meta is at an incredibly interesting point currently with lots of rock-paper-scissors matchups so keep your eyes peeled for some post-LGT analysis next week where we see what trends appear and what factions rise to the top of the meta. Enjoy and as always please feel free to leave us a comment if you have any feedback or questions we can help with! Dave & Vik

Hey All, Welcome back to Episode 35 of the Fireside 40K podcast hosted by Vik Vijay & David Gaylard of Team Ignite. There's little argument to be had that the singles meta isn't in the best spot at the moment , but there's hope in the form of a Balance Dataslate in September! We've got the talented Brian Seipp of Team Ignite on as a guest today to discuss our thoughts on the meta as it stands and potential solutions that might work to correct factions at the top + bottom of the power rankings. As always, enjoy, let us know what you think and see you by the Fireside, Dave & Vik

CROWDFUNDING - Liam VSL, a member of Team Ignite, Team Belgium and one of the best players in the world is currently crowd funding in order to be able to attend the World Championships in Atlanta (he's a student currently and wouldn't be able to attend otherwise). If you'd like to help out you can read more and support via this link : https://gofund.me/503cdd81 Hey All, Welcome back to Episode 34 of the Fireside 40K podcast hosted by Vik Vijay & David Gaylard of Team Ignite. The World Team Championships (WTC) were last weekend with Dave and I attending for the first time with Team New Zealand and Team England respectively. We both agree this was absolutely the best tournament we've ever attended - the challenge, the atmosphere, the sense of community, all completely unmatchable. We discuss our expectations, goals, results and give a run down for each round including some more details on our games (Vik = Thousand Sons, Dave = Deathwatch). As always, enjoy, let us know what you think and see you by the Fireside, Dave & Vik

Hey All,

Welcome back to Episode 33 of the Fireside 40K podcast hosted by Vik Vijay & David Gaylard of Team Ignite.

With the secrecy of WTC list submission behind us and everything in the open now, we're finally able to share some more of the details of what we've been up to over the past month. We're both attending our first WTC (World Team Championship) this year, Vik with Team England and Dave with Team New Zealand. In this episode we take a deep dive into the preparation phase for an event of this magnitude and contrast the differences/similarities between preparing for a singles vs team event. We discuss the meta, our army/faction choices as well as our goals/expectations for the event!

As always, enjoy, let us know what you think and see you by the Fireside,

Dave & Vik

Hey everyone, I'm joined by Typhus this week! He's a legend in the Polish scene, he's a previous UKTC judge, content creator on Enter the Matrix and an all round wizard when it comes to 40k. We're chatting about the WTC this episode, and trying to close the gap between people who aren't so familiar with it. Hopefully you'll learn about the WTC here, and find it useful to use the WTC as a springboard to get your lists into gear for the coming next season! Dave and Typhus

Hey everyone, Apologies if I'm a little tied on this one, I'm joined by the lovely Liam Hackett from Team Australia at 6:30AM I was really impressed with Liam, he's a really down to earth, smart and very experienced 40k player. He's made me reflect on a lot of things going into the WTC and some things that I hope I'm going to implement when we pair against each other round 1 at the WTC next week! Cheers, Dave and Liam

Hey everyone,

Vik is back!

We're going to be doing a quick recap of the FAQ, how it effects armies, what's involved, and what has maybe been missed.

After that we're going through some recent indicator results of the meta - with some caveats! - then Dave is chatting about the London Open tournament he's playing and the Necrons list he's rocking!

Dave and Vik

Hey everyone, Vik's on holiday so Dave is joined by Jokull and they're going through their views on how all of the current armies stack up. "Apparently" there's supposed to be an FAQ coming along, so hopefully this looks slightly more balanced but for now there's a clear winner. Some of the army placements might surprise you, just because we have them in a bracket doesn't mean that they cant overperform with a great pilot! Hope everyone's having a great time, and as always let us know what your thoughts are on some of the middle and top armies to see if we've missed something! #40k #warhammer #40kFireside #firesidepodcast Dave and Jokull

[Apologies in advance for the high rant levels in this one - we try our best to stay balanced, but it does get a little heated!] Hey All, Welcome back to Episode 28 of the Fireside 40K podcast hosted by Vik Vijay & David Gaylard of Team Ignite. 10th Edition has landed with indexes for the factions, points cost and the core rules all out. Change and particularly development is vital for the game, something we can see with the beautifully designed mission format (both primary and secondary) that we praised at length in the previous episode. However, with such a wide scale change to the core rules and army rules, there was bound to be some balancing issues. We’ve both gotten in a bunch of practice games, had discussions with a wide range of players and Dave’s taken the effort of listing the potential issues that have been raised as well as explaining the reasoning behind each one in detail. We then work out some potential solutions and options that GW might consider to solving these issues. This one is going to be a somewhat controversial topic, and we definitely understand there’s a lot more to learn about the edition over the coming months - we would love to hear your opinions and comments on this one so please leave one if you can! As always, enjoy, let us know what you think and see you by the Fireside, Dave & Vik

Hey All, Welcome back to Episode 27 of the Fireside 40K podcast hosted by Vik Vijay & David Gaylard of Team Ignite. We open up this episode with a quick chat/discussion on our thoughts regarding the decision of the Bugeater GT to pre-emptively ban Aeldari at their 10th Edition tournament (we're a little more positive than the general community opinion). 10th Edition rules are coming out at an incredible rate and one of the areas that has been refined/changed the most is secondary mission scoring. As one of the key defining factors that impact the way we play competitively, Dave and I have done an analysis on all 16 of the Secondary Missions to come up with a series of tactical criteria for how we play/list build to them and how they interact with each other. We also discuss the pros and cons of choosing a FIXED vs TACTICAL secondary mission scoring path and what we think is likely to work better in 10th Edition! As always, enjoy, let us know what you think and see you by the Fireside, Dave & Vik

Hey All, Vik is on holiday today so Dave is here with Jokull from our team Ignite! We're both covering the new Tyranids data sheets spoiled today. Jokull is a long time Tyranid player, taking them to LVO and LGT - and well, Dave killed things with Tyranid warriors too. So tune in to this episode to get a wall to wall coverage of the tyranid data sheets and the army rules! Dave & Jokull

Hey All, Welcome back to Episode 25 of the Fireside 40K podcast hosted by Vik Vijay & David Gaylard of Team Ignite. This past weekend saw Team Ignite (5 Players= Vik, Dave, Brian Seipp, Jokull Johannsson & Boris Michev) attend the huge Birmingham Teams Tournament (320 Players, 64x 5 Person Teams). We put the preparation that was discussed in episode 23 into practice and managed to win the entire event including a win against Team England in the finals. In this episode we dive into a more detailed look into our pairings philosophy and preparation as well as a run-through of each of the 6 rounds we played. Thank you to all of the teams we played for an awesome set of games throughout the event - this was one of the best events we have ever attended and hopefully teams continues to grow in the competitive scene (as it is definitely one of, if not the most, engaging/fun ways to play the game). As always, enjoy, let us know what you think and see you by the Fireside, Dave & Vik

Hey All, Welcome back to Episode 24 of the Fireside 40K podcast hosted by Vik Vijay & David Gaylard of Team Ignite. We've got a back-to-backer for you this week. Whilst we've primarily been focussing on 9th edition, we have been keeping a little eye on the 10th edition previews and the rules leak. Tune in to listen to our early takes and speculations (and please keep in mind we don't have the full picture yet, so our early takes may be way off the mark come full release next month!). As always, enjoy, let us know what you think and see you by the Fireside, Dave & Vik

Hey All, Welcome back to Episode 23 of the Fireside 40K podcast hosted by Vik Vijay & David Gaylard of Team Ignite. This episode focuses on the upcoming huge 300+ person Birmingham GT, a 5-man Team Tournament hosted by the UKTC. This event uses a fixed terrain format with the balanced UKTC layouts and mission order, resulting in a more singles-type meta. This is our first outing as Team Ignite to a team event and we've brought a strong 5-man team with the aim to do our best at this one! Tune in to hear about the lists that we're bringing as well as discussing some of the top teams in attendance, including the mighty Team England (who win every one of these events!). As always, enjoy, let us know what you think and see you by the Fireside, Dave & Vik

Hey guys,

Vik is away for this one, but After the Warhammer Fest Tournament we wanted to have a chat with our teammate Jokull because he placed very well at an absolutely stacked tournament with none other than DEATHWATCH!

Deathwatch has been a bit of a meme recently, boasting one of the lowest win rates (34% at one point?), so given the new changes to the faction, is it actually any good?

Jokull is a member of team Iceland, a fantastic player and an absolute gent and has lots to offer if you're an aspiring Deathwatch player!

Enjoy!

Jokull and Dave,

Hey All, Welcome back to Episode 21 of the Fireside 40K podcast hosted by Vik Vijay & David Gaylard of Team Ignite. This weeks episode focuses on the 360-person Warhammer Fest Super-Major last weekend, which saw 5/6 of Team Ignite attending, with 3 of our players (Chris Radford, Brian Seipp and Dave) making it into the top 16 cut for day 3 of the event. As the first Games Workshop Open Terrain event to take place in the UK, we spend the first section of the episode discussing our thoughts on the terrain and event as a whole, as well as compare it against the UKTC format that we're used to. We then focus on Dave's incredible run through the event, going 8-0 with his innovative Astra Militarum list, before taking a narrow defeat in the finals to finish in 2nd place! (To the wonderful Innes Wilson of StatCheck - congrats!) As always, enjoy, let us know what you think and see you by the Fireside, Dave & Vik

Hey All, Welcome back to Episode 20 of the Fireside 40K podcast hosted by Vik Vijay & David Gaylard of Team Ignite.
We finally got the last Dataslate of 9th Edition! We dedicate the majority of this episode on discussing the impact on the meta from the various changes in the dataslate and go through why we think it didn't do quite enough to really mix things up (How did Desolation marines survive?!). We also do a dive into our games at the London Open, a UKTC Major from last weekend as well as run through our initial thoughts about the massive Warhammer Fest event coming up at the end of the month. As always, enjoy, let us know what you think an see you by the Fireside, Dave & Vik

Hey All, Welcome back to Episode 19 of the Fireside 40K podcast hosted by Vik Vijay & David Gaylard of Team Ignite. With no Dataslate just yet (though hopefully due shortly after this episode releases!), our lists are submitted for the London Open - a 150-person Major event hosted by the UKTC. Dave's bringing his Astra Militarum and Vik his Aeldari. We run through our lists and how we've adapted to the Desolation marines that have created quite the hostile meta for both of our factions. We also go through the details on some of the strongest lists (Dark Angels, Iron Hands, Guard & Daemons) in attendance. This event has a large proportion of the best players in the UK creating a shark tank where we should expect lots of spicy pairings throughout the weekend. As always, please let us know if you have any questions or feedback and it would be hugely helpful if you leave us a comment, like or review on any of the streaming platforms you use to listen to Fireside 40K! See you by the Fireside, Dave & Vik

Hey All, Welcome back to Episode 18 of the Fireside 40K podcast hosted by Vik Vijay & David Gaylard of Team Ignite. We're joined this episode by our good friend and founding member of Team Ignite, Brian Siepp, to discuss his incredible run to Top 4 at the Manchester Super-Major with Iron Hands (including the newly-infamous Desolation Marines). We go through what makes the Desolation Marines so strong and the tactics Brian used to get through his first 5 rounds before the cut with 497/500 battle points! Brian was also joined by Vik this weekend in Manchester, with Vik managing to pull out an undefeated run of 5-0 at the event with his innovative Aeldari list. We touch in detail about some thoughts on his list design as well as a more in-depth look into how he managed his Round 5 game against an optimised Dark Angels list with 20 Terminators and 10 Desolation Marines. With the balance dataslate hopefully just around the corner, we touch on some of the things we'd like to see included and we'll be releasing another episode with our initial reactions as soon as it does drop! As always, please let us know if you have any questions or feedback and it would be hugely helpful if you leave us a comments, like or review on any of the streaming platforms you use to listen to Fireside 40K! See you by the Fireside, Dave, Vik & Brian

Hey All,

(Dave apologizes for his mic - had a little toooo much gain!).

Welcome back to Episode 17 of the Fireside 40K podcast hosted by Vik Vijay & David Gaylard.

This week saw Dave win another Super-Major (making him the only player in the UK to win 3!), the 200-player Southampton Super Major (UKTC).

This episode focuses on his 7-0 winning run at the event with Astra Militarum. We'll be dissecting his list design philosophy as well as the tactics he used in each of his games, including a detailed run through of his epic final game against Mani Cheema's Dark Angels.

We'll also be touching on the ethos behind the new team that we've started - Team Ignite, and our plans going forward for the season!

Enjoy the episode and as always let us know what you think! See you by the fireside,

MUSIC: Interlude - "Take 7 - Fabio Poian"

Vik & Dave

Hey all,

Welcome back to Episode 16 of the Fireside 40K podcast. We've just come back from the International Team Tournament, a 320 player (64 x 5-Person Teams) event with fixed terrain each round (making the results more relevant to singles), where our team (Dice Down) came in 5th place taking our loss to the amazing Team Poland.

In this episode we focus on sharing our thoughts on what we feel the strongest armies in the game are and some potential solutions on how to counter them.

The 23/24 season is starting to warm up and we've got some big events coming up, Dave touches on his thoughts for the next UKTC super-major, the Southampton GT.

Make sure to pour yourself a nice drink and come join us by the Fireside - Enjoy!

Vik & Dave

Hey all, 

Vik and Dave back again with our main podcast series talking about the first event of our 2023 40K Season - The Internation Team Tournament (ITT). This is a huge 5-man teams event, with 320 players in attendance including multiple national teams (England, Poland & Netherlands). 

We're bringing a selection of our finest from Dice Down to form a team trying to cause an upset and take the event.  We discuss our team and the lists that we're bringing (Dave= Astra Militarum & Vik= Aeldari) in detail, as well as go through the lists being brought by a selection of some of the top teams in attendance.  

The event is using fixed terrain (UKTC, with no light/heavy boards) matching their singles setup and whilst it's a team event the results should translate very well to informing the singles competitive meta! 

We hope you enjoy the episode and as always let us know if you have any feedback - we always listen and try to adapt to suit our audience - see you by the fireside, 

 Vik & Dave

Hey all,

We're joined today on the Fireside 40K podcast by one of the most lovely and talented 40K players to have hit the scene, Boris Michev (Also the owner of the incredible Bad Moon Cafe in London). As one of the members of Dice Down, we've had the pleasure of playing with and against Boris over the years.

Boris' story will resonate with many competitive 40K players as a few years ago he dipped out of tournament play to manage the increased time constraints that having children can bring to life.

We chat with him about how he's come out the other side and found the balance that allows him to now start looking at getting involved in competitive 40K again. Boris will be joining us as part of the team we're bringing to the International Team Tournament (ITT) running this weekend which will be his first event back after his hiatus.

To add even more spice to the episode, Boris is going to be breaking down his thoughts on the new World Eaters Codex (the army he'll be running at the event!) and where they sit in the singles, as well as the teams, meta.

We've got another episode coming out later this week in our main series of Fireside 40K discussing the ITT in more detail and running through some of the top teams in attendance. Until then, we hope you enjoy the episode and see you by the fireside!

Vik & Dave

Hey All,

Vik and I are now focussing our efforts on Arks of Omen! We haven't really had the time pre-LVO to look at anything else but we've been keeping out ears to the ground and looking at what has been performing well.

Ontop of that, we've been chatting in our team and have some first impressions that hopefully will be a fresh take on all the AOO content that has already come out!

So if you're late to the train like we are, jump on board with us in this Fireside episode :)

Enjoy!

Hey All,

Vik finished #2 ITC in the world this season and Dave finished #4 overall! We both placed 28(?) 17(?) respectively which gave us enough points to stay in the top 4!

We're chatting about our experience at LVO this episode, it's a bit of a rant so we apologize for some of the negativity upfront :)

Overall we've both had an amazing season, we're looking forward to playing this year, keeping the podcast going and taking some Dub's over the next 12 months.

Would we go back to LVO next year? - probably not.

Enjoy!

Hey All,

We've taken a little break from 40k over the holiday period but we're back! We've had such a fantastic time doing the Fireside in 2022 where we recorded our first 10 episodes and 2023 is going to bring even more content, new guests and hopefully some more wins!

Vik (ITC Rank #1) and Dave (ITC Rank #4) are here for episode 11 of the Fireside 40K. We're chatting about the recent Nottingham Super major (~390 players) where we took 4th place and 11th place. We were both playing indentical thousand sons and flamers lists which were a bunch of fun.

After Nottingham, we chat about LVO, our preperation, what we're taking and what some of the faction statistics look like. There are some surprising numbers and quite a few differences between UK and USA so we're even more excited to see when the lists go live and we can delve into what some of the other top players are also brining!

Hope you guys enjoy the episode, it's great to be back and as always feel free to leave some feedback!

Hey All,

Vik (ITC Rank #1) and Dave (ITC Rank #4) back again with episode 10 of Fireside 40K. We're SUPER excited to be joined by our good friend Anthony Vanella from the Art of War.

Recently Anthony came to the UK and played in the Coventry 3 day super major and we wanted to get him on to not only talk about his experience at Coventry but also his plans for LVO and thoughts on the meta in general.

In this episode we talk about the differences between the UK and USA competitive Warhammer scene, covering topics from; terrain, player skill and community!

Finally we move onto talking about the LVO, what our goals are and our approaches to going through a gauntlet tournament like LVO - what we think some of the strongest factions are going to be, how the terrain format changes that, and finally what a healthy mindset for Warhammer is.

Anthony brings a TON of great information in this episode, Vik and I both learnt a lot talking to him and we're sure that you guys will love it too :)

Hey All,

Vik (ITC Rank #1) and Dave (ITC Rank #4) back again with episode 9 of Fireside 40K. In the last episode we discussed what we'd both be bringing (Thousand Sons souped with Chaos Daemons) to the 240-Person Leicester Super Major and we're back in this episode to discuss how we got on!

We attended this event with 5 of our Dice Down teammates who we just want to give a little shoutout to: all of them ran through to a positive win/loss at the event. Malik took his GSC to 25th place 4-1, Alex Petford running the Tsons/Daemons took 29th place also with a 4-1. George (Imperial Knights), Konrad (Craftworlds/Quins) and Jim (Drukhari) all came in with a solid 3-2 record. Big shoutout to Feliks (Konrad's brother) who gave Alex his one loss using Tau and took the narrowest of 1-point losses to Mike Porter in round 5.

Dave narrowly missed the top cut to 4 players but finished the event with an incredible undefeated 5-0 and Vik went on to win the event with a 7-0 run!

In this episode we go through a deeper analysis and tactical insights into the games we played during the event and our feedback on the lists we ran. We also touch on the meta as a whole and how things are shaping up as we get closer to the final event of the season - LVO.

We hope you find the discussion useful and as always welcome your feedback to help us keep the show interesting and informative. See you by the Fireside!

Hey All,

Vik (ITC Rank #2) and Dave (ITC Rank #4) back with episode 8 of Fireside 40K. We've got our energy back to peak levels as we approach the final super-major event of the 2022, The Leicester GT.

As we're attending this event with 5 of our Dice Down teammates we wanted to go through a couple of their round 1 pairings at the event and give an example of the kind of pre-game tactical talk we often have as a team before each round of an event. We also pick out an interesting Votann list from Brian Siepp and a very cool Hydra Tyranid list from Mike Costello

We then touch on our lists and the reason why we've both gone for a very similar Thousand Sons souped in with Tzeentch Flamers list for this event.

We hope you enjoy listening to this one and as ever welcome your feeback, enjoy and see you by the Fireside.

Dave & Vik

Vik (ITC Rank #2) and Dave (ITC Rank #4) back again after a short hiatus, with our 7th episode of 40K Fireside. We've been a bit down in the dumps following a shaky performance at the Coventry Super Major, but we've had some time to gather our thoughts, pick ourselves up and get our motivation back for competitive 40k.

In this episode we're going to discuss what happened at the Coventry Super Major and our thoughts on how to keep up motivation when things don't go to plan in an ever-changing competitive meta. We interlace this discussion with some more of our thoughts on where the meta currently stands, Vik's first 8-man team event with WTC Team England and Dave's approach to finding a new army identity after his long and successful run with the Tyranids!

We found this episode very cathartic to record, delving a bit deeper into what it is to be a competitive 40K player and it touches on some topics that aren't widely or proudly discussed in the content scene. We hope you find it both entertaining and useful, and as always welcome your feedback to help make your listening experience more enjoyable - see you by the fireside!

Dave & Vik

Vik (ITC Rank #2) and Dave (ITC Rank #4) back again with our 6th episode of 40K Fireside. After getting in some practice games and gathering our thoughts following the changes in the latest balance dataslate, we've got some more considered ideas on what the strongest factions are, how the meta is likely to shape up for the rest of the year and what army concepts you are likely to have to deal with at your next event (as well as some ideas on how to actually deal with them!)

Following some great feedback, we've tried to make this episode a little more informative, with a deeper dive into the way we analyse event results across multiple (significantly different) terrain formats and how it informs our approach to list design. We stitch that into a discussion on the armies we're bringing to the Coventry Super-Major (8 rounds, 3 days) this weekend (4-6 Nov) as well as analysing 4 of, what we feel, are the strongest army lists in attendance at the event.

As always, we hope you find this entertaining/useful and we'd love your continued feedback and comments as it really helps us to keep refining the podcast!

Dave & Vik

Vik (ITC Rank #2) and Dave (ITC Rank #3) are back again with our 5th episode of 40K Fireside. We're recording this episode straight after the release of GW's latest Balance Dataslate and we'll be discussing our immediate impressions/hot takes on the impact it's likely to have on the competitive meta.

Did they make changes to the right things? Did those changes do enough? Are there any changes that we expected but didn't receive?

We answer all those questions and share our thoughts on how we feel the top factions may shift over the coming weeks as well as what we plan to take to the upcoming 3-day super major in Coventry.

As always we would love to hear your feedback and on this one particular, your thoughts on the balance dataslate, enjoy!

Dave & Vik

40K Fireside | Ep.4 | LGT Recap, Health of the Meta & Votann Nerf

Hey All,

Vik  (ITC Rank #1) and Dave (ITC Rank #3) back again with our 4th episode of 40K Fireside. On this episode we run through our experiences at The London Grand Tournament (Main Event & Invitational). We try to go deep into the analysis of the key factors involved in playing in huge events like this one that often extend well beyond the normal 5 rounds of a GT (Vik had 13 rounds between the 2 events!).

For Reference - a quick overview of the lists we took to the event [for more details please see the previous episode (Ep.3) of 40K Fireside or find them on BCP]:

Vik: CSM | Emperor's Children - Abaddon, Dark Apostle, Daemon Prince, Master of Possession, 5x5 Noise Marines, 10 Cultists, 2 Venomcrawlers.

Dave: Nids | Leviathan - Hive Tyrant, 2 Neurothropes, 9,9,4 Tyranid Warriors, 3 Tyrant Guard, 2x3 Venomthropes, 3 Zoanthropes, 2 Harpy's 

For more coverage on the LGT,  check out the London Grand Tournament facebook page which was run throughout the event by the fantastic team from the Contact Lost Podcast (a top quality competitive 40K podcast run alongside the brilliant Polish WTC team).

We also take a bit of time to touch on our thoughts on the meta as it stands before the next balance data slate as well as the unprecedented nerfs to Leagues of Votann.

As always we massively appreciate feedback and enjoy the episode!

Dave & Vik

Hey all,

David Gaylard (ITC Rank #2) & Vik Vijay (ITC Rank #3) back again with another episode of the 40K Fireside podcast.  

With the London Grand Tournament a fortnight away (which both of us are attending!) and set to be the largest tournament to have ever been held in Europe, we thought we’d look through the lists of those attending and pick out a handful of the strongest/most interesting ones to discuss in a little more detail.

We’ve also been spending a bit more time practicing with the Leagues of Votann codex and working out some potential options that could provide a chance against our soon-to-be squat overlords.

We’ve been overwhelmed with the positive feedback and encouragement that we’ve been receiving from the community and other content creators. Thank you all for your support, it feels amazing to have a platform to share our thoughts on a game we invest so much of ourselves into. We hope you continue to find the podcast useful and entertaining!

Vik & Dave

Hey all, David Gaylard (ITC Rank #1) and Vik Vijay (ITC Rank #2) back again with the second episode of 40K Fireside!

In this episode we briefly discuss the tournaments that we attended last weekend before diving into the main topic for the episode - The Leagues of Votann, the upcoming new faction being released into the 40K universe, which we’ve both been able to run a few test games with. (Warning - we do get a bit ranty about the power level that we feel the army is going to be at, based on the leaked codex).

Thank you everyone for the amazing feedback for episode 1 of 40K Fireside, we’ve taken everything you’ve said onboard and tried to make improvements. If there’s any other feedback or questions you’d like us to answer on the next episode feel free to leave a comment and let us know!

Enjoy,

Vik & Dave

The Pilot Episode

Hey all, Vik Vijay and David Gaylard here!

We’ve been discussing for a while the possibility of creating a podcast to give us a platform to share some of the experiences and knowledge we’ve picked up over our years of playing Warhammer 40K Competitively. 

We’re at the stage now where we’re both committed to understanding the meta as best as we can and playing at the more competitive levels of the game [Currently global ITC rank 1 (Dave) and 2 (Vik)], so thought we’d be in the right place to share our thoughts in a useful way with the wider competitive community.

We’d love it if you could have a listen to our pilot episode of the 40K Fireside (named to describe a chilled-out chat about the hobby by the fireside). We’re going to be discussing:

- Some of the upcoming events we’ll be attending (The Unconquerable Invitational & Battlefield Birmingham GT)

- Our thoughts on the current meta.

- Our initial thoughts on the new Chaos Daemons codex 

It’d help us to keep this going if you could also share any thoughts and feedback with us and ultimately, we both hope you find something in there that’s useful and/or entertaining to listen to.

Enjoy!

Vik & Dave