<p>Laser powder bed fusion offers a high degree of geometric freedom for manufacturing with novel materials, yet failures during fabrication remain a critical barrier to achieving more complex components. Recoater blade collisions, cracking, and build plate delamination damage parts and performance, especially with hard and high-temperature materials. Cemented carbides are optimal for high-hardness machining and tooling parts, but high thermal gradients and complex composite behaviors exacerbate fabrication issues. Understanding the effects of build process parameters on macroscopic failure modes is critical to mitigate such issues. This study leverages thermomechanical modeling to investigate the effects of process parameter alterations on build stresses and deflection for WC-Ni part fabrication strategies. A comparative analysis revealed that reductions in laser energy density and part sizes reduced part deflection. The simulations reinforced that bed preheating reduced stresses and thermal gradients, but reductions in interlayer timing also benefited builds by adding additional interlayer heating. Sharp geometric features common in cemented carbide machining and tooling parts significantly increased deflection. Exploratory builds achieved high-density (&gt; 97%) WC-17 wt% Ni parts, with delamination occurring only with the geometry with the highest simulated stress. Profilometry revealed over-melting around part edges and high surface roughness (arithmetic mean height up to 61.5&#xa0;µm), indicating that localized features from scan strategies heavily contribute to recoater collisions. The successful fabrication of a range of parts, including drill bit geometries, demonstrated the effectiveness of parameter refinement as a tool to avoid catastrophic failure events with laser powder bed fusion.</p>