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[40k] Competitive Innovations in 10th: The Only Good Elf pt.1

By James "One_Wing" Grover

Welcome to Competitive Innovations, our weekly feature for a number of game lines across the tabletop wargame space. Each week our army list and tactics experts canvass the top tournaments for their game of specialty, looking at the week’s top match-ups and how they played out on the tabletop to let you know what’s hot, what’s not, and what might be coming next as the competitive meta evolves year-round.

Sinister spectral energy abounds this week as the Aeldari, especially the Ynnari, get into their stride. The win rate is still middle of the road, suggesting that the new book is a lot harder to play well than the Index, but the most morbid Aeldari Detachment put up a disproportionate number of top finishes across a triple threat 15-event weekend, and plenty of the usual suspects are pivoting to it. It isn’t all about the Aeldari though – Knights continue to thrive, especially as they’re pretty good at kicking elves to death, and we’ve started seeing the first builds from the new Guard book unleashed as well (though notably not at the largest event of the week, where it wasn’t live).

Everything’s still being shaken up, all told, and we’ve got the gigantic Manchester UKTC supermajor firing in the UK this coming weekend, so we’ll see what happens when the island’s finest smash all their new toys into one another. Let us read the runes from the past week to see if we can divine the future, starting with the following events today:

  • Cherokee Open 2025 – 40k Champs
  • 6. Corsair Open GT
  • Heroes of the mid table winter 2025
  • Top Gun: Callsign Chilli
  • Toys of Mass Destruction – Hertfordshire Spring GT

In a break from normal three-part scheduling, we’ll follow straight up on Thursday with:

  • Milwaukee GT III
  • Oxford Onslaught 4
  • Waterloo Games Store Championship 40K Event Hosted by Away Games
  • casi casi GT 2.0
  • HWP Salty Classic GT February 2025

Finally on Friday we’ll look at:

  • NRW 40K Singles 2025 – Alpine Cup
  • 22 & 23 Feb 2025 – OWN’s Breaking Point GT at Primal Nerds
  • Fire & Blood GT
  • DaBoyz GT Golden Sprue 2025 40K 1v1
  • I Torneo Iberian Open 2025 Cripta de los Héroes

Three parts means triple democracy for our patrons, and this week they have selected the following Showdowns:

  • Imperial Knights vs. Taktikal Brigade at the Cherokee Open.
  • Devoted Of Ynnead vs. Imperial Knights at OWN’s Breaking Point GT
  • Bridgehead Strike vs. Aspect Host at the Milwaukee GT

Cherokee Open 2025 – 40k Champs

287-player, 8-round Supermajor in Cherokee, NC, United States on February 21 2025. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Purge the Foe – Rapid Escalation – Crucible of Battle

Brian Jones – Imperial Knights (Noble Lance)
Army List - Click to Expand

vs.

Steven Crawley – Orks (Taktikal Brigade)
Army List - Click to Expand

Thoughts

The dream team of an Atrapos and Canis Rex face off against Taktikal Brigade here, and someone is going to get pounded into the ground with maximum prejudice. Unfortunately for the Orks, they are short an absolutely key unit for this matchup – Steven’s Taktikal build cuts Breaka Boyz in favour of cramming in more activations and going a bit wide. That’s very defensible in an eight-round event as it boosts reliably, and it really only hurts you in matchups where, for example, two big Knights are coming right at you. Welp.

That doesn’t quite make this unwinnable for the Orks, but it’s fundamentally going to turn hard on whether they successfully take a big swing into one of the tall boys, especially on this mission. The one possible weakness of the Knight build in the matchup is being much less able to afford to lose a few Armigers while fighting for objectives, but on Purge that doesn’t matter too much, as the Knights can at least keep pace on scoring while being very cautious.

No Breaka Boyz as a counter-charge threat and no way to force a Primary advantage leaves the Knights able to dictate the tempo of the game, not a situation Orks ever want to be in. I wonder if there’s maybe some really sneaky, really cautious route to victory via Secret Mission, but that’s going to be tough and rely on a very explosive final few turns. Otherwise, the odds are in the Knight’s favour, and they were able to capitalise effectively.

Result

Imperial Knights (Noble Lance) Victory – 87 – 50

Brian Jones – Imperial Knights (Noble Lance) – 1st Place

Loyalist Knight Atrapos
Loyalist Knight Atrapos. Credit: Jack Hunter

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Double Bigs

Thoughts

The master of the Freeblade Lance returns, appropriately unleashing Canis Rex to claim victory here. I’m always a fan of big Knights doing things, and I also really like the deeper investment in Immolators and adding some Subductors as well to keep the drop count up while still getting the brutal threat of two bigs. It also ups the reliability in its way – you might not think of melta as needing Ignore Cover support, but ensuring that 3+ saves never get a chance to spike can matter a lot against other heavy hitting forces. Well done to Brian on his triumph!

Chris Bingham – Imperial Knights (Noble Lance) – 2nd Place (7.5-0.5)

Imperial Knights - Armiger Helverins
Imperial Knights – Armiger Helverins
Credit: Pendulin

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Canis and Friends

Thoughts

A double header for Knights here, albeit with a slightly more conventional build in second place, focusing on the raw efficiency of putting down Canis Rex and a whole bunch of Armigers. You still very much want the one Immolator to turn on Ignore Cover for the Helverins, and that’s present and correct, but otherwise the plan here leans more on redundancy, at a cost of not being quite as brutal if it goes full send. That seems to have worked well for Chris, as he ground his way to the final round undefeated, and was only held to a draw at the last by a powerful monster mash Tyranid build. Well done Chris!

Ben Andraka – Tyranids (Invasion Fleet) – 3rd Place

Hive Tyrant. Credit: Rockfish
Hive Tyrant. Credit: Rockfish

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Monster Toolbox

Thoughts

Toolbox Monster Mash, I’m in love. I’m a sucker for both parts of that equation, and this build whips, deploying a wide variety of different big bugs to help it adapt to the fairly broad metagame we’re currently seeing. Particularly notable in that regard is the choice of a Winged Hive Tyrant in place of the more conventional foot-slogging option. The Flyrant lets you get your Stratagem discounts into place where they’re most needed, and the current metagame also makes Paroxysm especially strong. Aeldari, Orks and Genestealer Cults all utilise melee threats with a low number of high quality attacks, so losing attacks is disastrous. Imagine charging a Howling Banshee squad into something and getting to roll a grand total of six dice. Monstrous. Shouldn’t be allowed. Smart choice though. Great to see some unusual options separate a build from the pack, congratulations to Ben.

Steven Crawley – Orks (Taktikal Brigade) – 4th Place

Wrecka Krew Tankbusta Gunners by Craig “MasterSlowPoke” Sniffen

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Shooty Taktial Brigade

Thoughts

As covered in the Showdown, this is a fairly shooty-skewed version of Taktikal Brigade, going for a lighter set of melee shock troops than normal in favour of more board presence, more redundancy and maxing out on Tankbustas. I can certainly see why that’s an appealing option for an eight round event – if you want to win over that many rounds, you need reliability as well as raw power, which this list offers, and Steven was able to pilot it to the top tables with very strong scores all the way through until finally falling to Brian. Congratulations on a really strong run.

The Best of the Rest

There were 5 more players on 7-1 records, and I’ve also put in the 10th placed player who got paired up into Chris’s Knights in round eight and held him to a draw. They were:

  • 5th – Collin Cochran – Chaos Space Marines (Creations of Bile): Two big Possessed bricks and various brawler units in Rhinos.
  • 6th – Robin Roberts – Genestealer Cult(Host of Ascension): Horde Neophytes and Jackals with a load of Leaders.
  • 7th – Patrick Martin – Tyranids (Assimilation Swarm): Tarpit Monster Mash mixing up various Harvesters with two full Tyrant Guard bricks.
  • 8th – Andrew Vawter – Ultramarines (Stormlance Task Force): Super Storm Raven and speedy Dreadnoughts.
  • 9th – Nick Herting – Blood Angels (Liberator Assault Group): I Can’t Believe it’s Not Blood Angels with a mix of melee MSUs, Ballistus Dreads and Vindicators.
  • 10th – Ryan Karrer – Tyranids (Invasion Fleet): Shooty monster mash adding a Zoanthrope unit for some more focused obliteration.

6. Corsair Open GT

55-player, 6-round Grand Tournament in München, BY, DE on February 21 2025. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Fritz Peters – Necrons (Starshatter Arsenal) – 1st Place

The Silent King
The Silent King. Credit: Pendulin

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Starshatter

Thoughts

While it has fallen off from being the definitively best Necron detachment, Starshatter still poses a big threat, and I think this is an especially strong implementation, judiciously cutting down on Characters to cram in one more major threat than such lists normally manage. The Silent King/triple Doomsday setup with a Lychguard counter-charge unit and a Reanimator is quite the thing, especially as there’s still a decent scattering of scoring pieces, and honestly looking at this is giving me one of those moments if I’m wondering if the only thing holding a list archetype back is people getting too cute with it. Something that I, to be clear, have never once been guilty of. No sir.

Anyway, great work from Fritz for keeping the Necrons in the conversation while less dedicated Xenos fans flip over to Aeldari.

The Best of the Rest

There were 5 more players on 5-1 records. They were:

  • 2nd – Roman Kleiber – Aeldari (Aspect Host): A big Reaper brick and lots of Fire Dragons/Banshees, with a couple of Serpents to ride in and Phoenix Lords and Autarchs at the helm. Also features some scatter Windriders as a longer-ranged threat.
  • 3rd – Nikolai Stocks – Adeptus Mechanicus (Haloscreed Battle Clade): A big beautiful robot brick, supported by maximum Ruststalkers and a mix of Duneriders and Disintegrators.
  • 4th – Matthias Murr – Blood Angels (Liberator Assault Group): I Can’t Believe it’s Not Blood Angels with Inceptors and Predators for the shooting.
  • 5th – Marc E. – Aeldari (Devoted of Ynnead): An absolute wall of Aspect Warrior MSUs with a few Kabalites as glue.
  • 6th – Kay Kleinvogel – Astra Militarum (Bridgehead Strike): New Codex Bridgehead, here mostly just swapping out double Russ Commander for double Dorn Commander when it comes to the heavier stuff.

Heroes of the mid table winter 2025

43-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Langley Twp, BC, CA on February 22 2025. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Noah Beddome – Orks (Green Tide) – 1st Place

Shoota Boyz. Credit: Rockfish
Shoota Boyz. Credit: Rockfish

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Green Tide 2025

Thoughts

Rolling people over in Boyz will never not be in fashion somewhere, and here’s the Green Tide once more ready to roll over and flatten people. The advantage of playing a build like this is that it’s at least somewhat target agnostic – there are lots of different top builds out there each with different threat and target profiles, but Green Tide only really cares if other lists are routinely teching for hordes, as anything else can either be flattened or our-scored as required. Tankbustas are also a great pickup for the detachment, providing some relatively self-sufficient threats that stop the foe’s big toys being able to operate as freely as they’d like. I like this version of Tide, and it also seems great if Ynnari are the future – doesn’t matter how fast they can go if the entire board is carpeted in Boyz. Well done Noah!

Stu Angel – Genestealer Cult (Host of Ascension) – 2nd Place (Undefeated)

Genestealer Cult Benefictus.

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Horde Host

Thoughts

Hey speaking of horde builds that make elves sad, Genestealer Cults snuck up into the top five faction win rates this weekend, and among the elite few holding true to faith in the Star Children, Stu was the one who secured an undefeated finish. Much like the Orks above, Stu’s build here mainly cares whether the foe has any way of handling 80 Neophytes, and if they don’t then the prognosis is very bad. It’s also well protected against deep strike builds via the sheer number of drops and models it deploys, and doubling up on Beneficti for Lethal Hits means it can spike out a key target or two against almost anything. Also a fan of the Metamorph MSUs with new Cult Ambush – they only run you 2RP to bring back (same as Acolytes) but provide a better mix of melee and flamer threat, while also adding good early game value from Scout. Neat little choice, and it helps this build ascend that extra level of flexibility, great work from Stu.

The Best of the Rest

There were 5 more players on 4-1 records. They were:

  • 3rd – Darren Thibault – Chaos Daemons (Legion of Excess): Medium-heavy Legion, using Shalaxi and a Keeper and adding lots of Fiends and a flying Daemon Prince.
  • 4th – Aiden McFaull – Thousand Sons (Cult of Magic): Double Mutalith, plus a lighter scattering of Characters than normal to pay for extra cultists and some Tzaangors.
  • 5th – Liam Bath – Necrons (Awakened Dynasty): Herohammer-heavy Awakened with the Nightbringer, some Wraiths and couple of Doomsdays for the heavy lifting.
  • 6th – Jind Singh – Imperial Knights (Noble Lance): A Gallant and a dirty dozen Armigers.
  • 7th – Daniel Knight – Imperial Knights (Noble Lance): Canis Rex, nine Armigers and some Agents support.

Top Gun: Callsign Chilli

30-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand on February 21 2025. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Alex Dugmore – Chaos Daemons (Legion of Excess) – 1st Place

Credit: Svbfloorvg

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Heavy Hitter Excess

Thoughts

Fiends and Keepers kids, Fiends and Keepers. Two great datasheets that taste great together. I assume, anyway. Presumably all of Slaanesh’s creations taste great. If you want raw, direct melee power, you can’t do much better than this right now, especially if you include the Tormentbringer for Fight On Death (again, imagine elves charging that, get clawed idiots). It’s also well known that when Aeldari go on a rampage, Slaanesh arises in response, so well done to Alex for playing the part of the Great Enemy so well.

The Best of the Rest

There were 3 more players on 4-1 records. They were:

  • 2nd – Tim Ho – Chaos Knights (Traitoris Lance): Dogs and Nurglings, with a lone Poxbringer as a deep strike scoring piece.
  • 3rd – Dan Hayden – Adeptus Custodes (Solar Spearhead): Ultra crunchy spearhead with triple Telemon and triple Vendread.
  • 4th – Ryan de Heer – Chaos Space Marines (Creations of Bile): Pure melee Bile, going for double big Possessed brick, brawlers in Rhinos, and a full Warp Talon unit as a roving threat.

Toys of Mass Destruction – Hertfordshire Spring GT

29-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in England, United Kingdom on February 22 2025. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Martyn Cooper – Aeldari (Devoted of Ynnead) – 1st Place

Wraithlord. Credit: Rockfish
Wraithlord. Credit: Rockfish

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Go Wide Ynnari

Thoughts

And finally, after slow rolling through the rest of the events, we get our first Ynnari win, with Martyn betraying the Astra Militarum to try out the Ynnari. His build has two of the things seen in many of the most successful iterations of the army – a lot of units and Wraithlords. On the former, Martyn does break from the norm a little – he’s got the many Aspect MSUs that are common to pretty much all strong Aeldari lists, but also triples down on Venoms with split Kabalite units. I think this is a good choice – because you can put all the good guns into one half of the squad each time, you get three very mobile shooting platforms with reasonable punch and stickiness (and gigantic reach via triggering Star Engines during Lethal Intent), and then three cheap throwaway units at a bargain price point. Very nice.

The Wraithlords…man I’m so mad about these. Every time these have been nearly good for like three editions I’ve mind tricked myself into trying them out and been disappointed. I even looked at their new datasheet and thought “that looks neat in Ynnari”, but convinced myself I must be overrating them again. Nope – turns out they’re a really, really good all-rounder platform in Ynnari, providing a bit of anti-tank that doesn’t die to a stiff breeze, and forcing some genuinely tricky choices on opponents when they can threaten a Lethal Intent or Fight First. Rest assured, I will not be making the same mistake next time I take my Ynnari out, and will be copying Martyn shamelessly. Congratulations on the win.

The Best of the Rest

There were 4 more players on 4-1 records. They were:

  • 2nd – Mathew Putney – Necrons (Awakened Dynasty): The Silent King and a Tesseract Vault as fancy centrepieces, with some Wraiths to tarpit.
  • 3rd – Chris Paterson – Aeldari (Devoted of Ynnead): Shooty Ynnari with a big unit of Incubi with both Yvraine and the Visarch to dominate the mid-field (and the option to split one of the leaders out to a smaller unit if needed), and a couple of Fire Prisms and some Windriders to blast stuff.
  • 4th – Stephen Heron – Chaos Daemons (Legion of Excess): Full send triple Keeper/Shalaxi horror.
  • 5th – John Watson – Tyranids (Invasion Fleet): Monster Mash with mostly shooty bugs and a Norn Emissary to seize a key objective.

Wrap Up

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