The World Championships of Warhammer are next week and we’re prepping by talking to some of the key competitors at this year’s event – many of whom are also competing for top honors in the ITC. We sat down with Innes Wilson to talk to them about their plans and expectations for the event itself.
Competitor Profile
Player name: Innes Wilson
Age: 27
Country of Origin: Scotland
Where you won your ticket: Manchester GT
Let’s start with the basics. What army are you bringing to the World Championships, and why did you choose them?
I’m playing a Blood Angels Ironstorm Spearhead list. From the day they printed the Lethal Hits + whirlwinds combo I knew I was going to be running that for events, I’m nothing if not simple. The challenge then became finding a package around it that would be suitable for actually winning games of Warhammer around it. With the Blood Angels melee and more repeatable shooting, hopefully we’ve found the winning combination.
Innes' List - Click to Expand Blood Angels – Ironstorm Spearhead Lemartes (110 points) 1x The Blood Crozius Techmarine (95 points) 1x Grav-pistol 1x Omnissian power axe 1x Servo-arm The Sanguinor (140 points) OTHER DATASHEETS Baal Predator (125 points) 1x Baal flamestorm cannon 2x Heavy flamer 1x Hunter-killer missile 1x Storm bolter Baal Predator (125 points) 1x Baal flamestorm cannon 2x Heavy flamer 1x Hunter-killer missile 1x Storm bolter Death Company Marines with Jump Packs (260 points) 10x Power fist Inceptor Squad (110 points) 1x Plasma exterminators 2x Plasma exterminators Inceptor Squad (110 points) 1x Plasma exterminators 2x Plasma exterminators Inceptor Squad (110 points) 1x Plasma exterminators 2x Plasma exterminators Scout Squad (55 points) 1x Bolt pistol 1x Close combat weapon 4x Bolt pistol 4x Close combat weapon 1x Missile launcher 1x Scout sniper rifle Stormhawk Interceptor (155 points) 1x Las-talon 1x Twin assault cannon 1x Typhoon missile launcher Stormhawk Interceptor (155 points) 1x Las-talon 1x Twin assault cannon 1x Typhoon missile launcher Whirlwind (145 points) 1x Hunter-killer missile 1x Storm bolter 1x Whirlwind vengeance launcher Whirlwind (145 points) 1x Hunter-killer missile 1x Storm bolter 1x Whirlwind vengeance launcher Whirlwind (145 points) 1x Hunter-killer missile 1x Storm bolter 1x Whirlwind vengeance launcher
Run us through your list a little bit. What made you choose this list, and why do you enjoy playing it?
Nassim and I opted to play this list because it’s all unavoidable damage. The aircraft can see over terrain, the inceptors drop in 3” away and the Whirlwinds fire with infinity range indirect. There’s no way to stop yourself taking damage here, which encourages opponents to play a certain way which we can then do our best to exploit. Plus roughly half of our games we get to go first with best in class indirect and that has a quality all of its own.
I always enjoy playing off meta and strange lists that catch people off guard, and showing up with two Aircraft in 10th edition has to be one of the biggest “what?”s of the tournament at least based on every other chat I’m in’s response so I’m looking forward to putting up or shutting up.
What does the list do well against? What match-ups are you hoping to avoid?
In theory we built the list to be great into the CSM and Eldar heavy meta at the top end, while being a bit weaker into less popular matchups like Chaos Knights and Votann where the high toughness can be a bit of a problem. It’s still a very flexible list though, so those match-ups aren’t just straight losse. It’s a fools errand to think you can cover every base but there’s enough tools to give you a chance to make some clever decisions in game.
Deploy Servo Skulls is the real bad match-up. I do not like having to kick footballs around with my very limited on board unit presence.
Fixed or Tactical?
Flexible, always. People are so willing to change everything else about their game but not literally how they score points. Every game, mission and match-up have different requirements for my units and other resources, change it as it goes.
The World Championships of Warhammer isn’t the largest event ever, but it’s certainly the first of its kind. What was your road getting to the event like? Was it something you were aiming for?
I ended up winning my ticket almost by accident at the Manchester GT coming 3rd as the people above me passed it down, so Ive had a qualifier since around march, which certainly took a lot of pressure off. I managed to win Flight+Hotel Coverage from Games Workshop at Warhammer Fest in may which took off all the rest (Thank you Desolation Marines).
If I hadn’t gotten an early ticket I definitely would have been chasing one a little harder, but the UK has been a great environment to grab one for the last while as there’s almost always an event you can get to.
How does it feel to be going to the event? Are you nervous? Excited? How does it compare to LVO?
LVO was exciting for the fact of it being the end of the season, and also for the destination of being in Las Vegas. Atlanta is definitely more of an authentic “I’m here for the Warhammer”, rather than any extra-meta or location based frivolities. I like to think I’m past the point of nervousness about 40k events any more but frankly I stress over the smallest RTT so..
The event’s going to be awesome just for the people, I’ve never been to an event that’s as stacked as this that wasn’t a great time for that alone. The quality of games available will make up for any other faults.
How do you feel about the event’s unique country-based scoring? Does it add excitement to later rounds for you?
I’m competing as part of a smaller country so it’s definitely not something I’m paying a huge amount of attention to. If Brian, Myself and anyone playing for other game systems happen to do well it’ll be a nice surprise and I’m planning on wearing a Kilt, but it’s not really something I’m worrying about or putting much stock into.
How do you expect the competition to be different from other events? Is there anything you’re doing differently to prepare?
I’m fortunate to have been able to play in dozens of top level events like WTC, Home Nations, and Warmaster GT that have this “no bottom end, everyone’s a killer” tournament format, and they’re always a blast. You come out of the gates firing on all cylinders and you just have to stay there as long as you can. I don’t expect Atlanta to be any different, or my prep to be any more or less. Play your best Warhammer, hope it’s enough on the day.
How do you expect you’ll do at the event? What’s a “good event” look like for you, record-wise?
I’m here to win. I’m not flying across the Atlantic to have a good time. But I’ll be okay with something around an X-1 record in each stage (that’s 4-1 in Groups, 3-1 in Pod for those counting). I’m one of the best players in the world but anyone can win a game, that’s why we roll the dice and it would be rude to suggest anyone was unstoppable.
How do you feel about 10th edition competitive play heading into this event? How does the meta feel to you right now?
I am so sick of Phantasm..
Real talk the meta is fairly healthy right now. We’re seeing a lot of success for basically every army in the game relative to the rest of the environment and nothing is standing out as being particularly terrible. The top end is pretty consolidated around Eldar and the things that have a reasonable answer to them and it’s definitely crowing out the “things that can reasonably win large events space” barring some exception luck or play, but both of those exist as outs where they didn’t before.
The game will never be good while indirect exists in the state it does now, with Nightspinners being the most egregious, but Havoc Launchers, Plagueburst Crawlers and Whirlwinds are all contributing to the problem. Mechanic is bad, more news at 11. Remove that and phantasm and I think we’re playing a real chill game. Maybe punt another 200 points into the Yncarne too.
You’re currently still in the hunt for the ITC crown this year, and this event could replace one of your scores. How does that factor into your plans?
It’s definitely hard to follow along with the ITC right now with so many less of the leaderboards being clear to see, but we’re still trucking along somewhere near the top. It’ll be good to get another nice big score in ahead of LVO, but at the end of the day Mani is pretty far ahead of the pack which means a really strong LVO performance is pretty much the only place to make back the ~100 points or so needed for first.
There’s no reason not to make a start on dropping that requirement here though, and we can’t let other people catch up, either. Looking at you, Ben.
Thanks again for taking the time to answer our questions. Good luck at the event!
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