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Competitive Innovations in 10th: A Challenger Approaches pt.1

By James "One_Wing" Grover

You’re all at it again, I see. It’s another bumper-sized 15-event week, so we’re once again going for three parts. Plenty of the usual suspects are out and about, slamming a last few games in the pre-dataslate world, but there’s also some ominous theme music playing, and a mysterious shadowed figure walking towards the Showdown arena. Wonder what’s up with that.

Perhaps we’ll find out today as I cover:

  • Squig City: Casino Royale
  • Frontier Open 2024
  • Kennedy-Con 40K
  • ValleyCon 2024
  • The Deck Box Masters Grand Tournament April 27th-28th

On Thursday a mix of your regular team and a grab-bag of guests will cover:

  • Ozcon GT
  • High Noon Showdown 2024
  • Warzone: Dice Goblin
  • Incursion Events 40K GT 27-28/04/2024
  • Red Dragon April GT
Finally, on Friday we’ll have Lowest of Men looking at:
  • 2024 St. Louis Annual Last Minute Tournament (SALT)
  • 4. Nurglemania (2-täger)
  • War At The Westward IV
  • Triple Cities GT @ Dragon Master Games
  • Saarhammer 40k #36 GT 2 Tage
Our showdowns are going to be:
  • Righteous Black Templars vs Chaos Knights at Squig City
  • Chaos Knights vs Aeldari at Warzone: Dice Goblin
  • Genestealer Cults vs Stormlance Space Wolves at SALT
Anyway, that music sure is getting louder. Oh my.

Squig City: Casino Royale

77-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Pendleton, OR, United States on April 27 2024. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Purge the Foe – Chilling Rain – Crucible of Battle

Campbell “SRM” McLaughlin – Black Templars (Righteous Crusaders)
Army List - Click to Expand

vs.

Trenton Bates – Chaos Knights (Traitoris Lance)
Army List - Click to Expand

Thoughts

That’s right, our very own SRM has been getting steadily competitive-pilled since claiming a bracket trophy at the GW Open Tacoma last year, and this weekend he made it all the way to the finals of a major. This is great news for me, because it adds another person to the list who I can just make write their own showdowns – take it away Campbell:

SRM: I somehow himbo’d my way onto top table in Pendleton, drowning an embarrassment of C’tan in Lethal Hit chainsword attacks. I was crossing my fingers that I’d go up against Tarzan’s Gargantuan Squiggoth list in round 5, but got matched into Trenton’s Chaos Knights. My experience with Chaos Knights was a single game against a fairly soft list, so this was going to be an uphill battle.

My list does really well against armies with just a handful of important units. Between Oath of Moment and the killing power of all the Lethal Hits my army generates, I can pretty reliably cut down any piece of heavy armor in just one round of combat. The problem is when there are a bunch of medium sized units to deal with, and each of them is a credible threat that can drop one of my key assets in a single round of shooting or combat. As a result my normally durable army is shockingly fragile, and just about any force commitment is an overcommitment.

Aside from a bupkis hand of tactical cards, I felt good going into turn 1 – Trenton got first turn, meaning he had to expose at least a couple units to either angle shots onto my Land Raiders or do some actions on objectives. His big knight’s run roll whiffed so it stayed put instead of getting a nasty turn 1 charge. He scored A Tempting Target but his shooting bounced, and I was ready to clap back hard. The nature of Purge the Foe means you benefit from killing more enemy units in a turn than your opponent, and I overcommitted for those 8 points by yeeting Helbrecht and his boys into some Nurglings and a War Dog and picking them both up.

I got those first 8 points and nabbed an objective, but absolutely paid for it in round 2 when my main killing unit and their expensive Land Raider were left exposed and summarily picked apart. I couldn’t make an armor save to save my (or any of my little dudes’) life, and seemingly used up every successful Feel No Pain roll in my previous games. He got a pair of gimme cards and immediately made up for an unsuccessful first turn by blowing up the Kill Point Piñata that is Helbrecht’s squad, while in my own turn I was only able to kill his big Knight with a squad of Sword Brethren and some fire support from my reserve Storm Speeder, scoring me Assassinate and a small Secure No Man’s Land. Again, one of my key melee units was left out in the open, but if they hadn’t run out there I’d have a massive melee knight problem to deal with.

Going into 3 I was in a rough position. I was flustered, running out of killing power, and he was drawing easy sets of secondaries every single round. My dice were whiffing when I needed them to simply roll average, and the emotional rollercoaster of rolling snake eyes into boxcars into snake eyes every time I fired a gun that mattered was starting to take its toll. He was holding more objectives every turn, killing more of my units than I could kill back every turn, and getting all the right cards. I struggled with what to even do with a few of my units, leaving my Outriders and Intercessors in the backfield when they should have been skirmishing and screening my more valuable assets. Turn 3 I took out a pair of his War Dogs, but stupidly left my Godhammer Land Raider in melee with one of them in the hopes I could kill it with its lascannons. I could not, and I lost my Land Raider, which then exploded and cut its way through more of my stuff.

Round 4 saw him effectively win the game, but we kept playing through 5. I finally drew some scorable cards and did some damage, taking the central objective from one of his War Dogs with a combination of Grenades from my Outriders, Tank Shock from my Storm Speeder, and a few lucky chainsword attacks. It was too little too late, however, and that late influx of points wasn’t enough to tie it up.

Trenton kept a cool head throughout while I was getting flustered, and absolutely had a plan for every one of my units on the board and every card in the deck. I didn’t have the reps against Chaos Knights to be as familiar with the faction as I needed to be, and I made some boneheaded moves nearly every round. I should have started with the Storm Speeder and Gladiator on the board for more early game damage and put my cheaper backfield screening units further afield to get me some board control, and absolutely pulled back my Land Raider when it was stuck in combat. Well played by Trenton, and congrats to him for winning the event.

Result

Chaos Knights (Traitoris Lance) Victory – 100 – 80

Trenton Bates – Chaos Knights (Traitoris Lance) – 1st Place

Knight Rampager. Credit: Rockfish
Knight Rampager. Credit: Rockfish

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Rampager Walks some Dogs

Thoughts

Now, we obviously have an immediate blood feud against Trenton for taking down out champion, but taking a Rampager is still super cool and it’s great to see one on the top tables. Between Bloodlust and Knights of Shade you can be much cagier about staging it then striking than with most big Knights, and that maximises the chance of actually landing value from your big investment. The fact that its large aura also lets it soup up Karnivores from behind a wall helps bait opponents into a position where you can strike for great effect, and it’s clear that Trenton was able to really use this asset to his advantage. Congratulations on the win!

Joel Rodgers – Space Wolves (Stormlance Task Force) – 2nd Place (Undefeated)

Credit: “Contemptor” Kevin Stillman

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Stormlance Wulfenmaxxing

Thoughts

I highlighted in our Dataslate review that the lack of changes to the cost of Stormlance tools seemed pretty risky, and sure enough here it is going undefeated at a major before the other top builds catch some nerfs. This army does high speed pressure better than pretty much anyone else, and I expect it to be in contention for top dog post-dataslate. I think we’ll also see more of the Hounds of Morkai tech that’s on show here as well – they’re excellent in the Thousand Sons matchup, and that’s another faction who came out of the Dataslate looking strong. Well done to Joel for being the harbinger of things to come.

Tyler Bortel – Necrons (Hypercrypt Legion) – 3rd Place

C'tan Shard of the Void Dragon. Credit: Rockfish
C’tan Shard of the Void Dragon. Credit: Rockfish

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Warrior Hypercrypt

Thoughts

A mix of things that we’ll see more of and things that’ll show up less here, for my money. Obviously C’tan are great pre-dataslate, but taking three gets a lot dearer afterwards, and I suspect armies like this that want to have other stuff going on aren’t going to be able to. On the other hand, Warriors have been quietly putting up some good showings, and stayed level on price, so expect them to get a bit more of a runaround as Phaerons tinker with their builds – I know my army for my first post-dataslate event this weekend has some. Well done to Tyler for giving triple C’tan a good final (?) outing.

Joseph Hansen – Astra Militarum (Combined Regiment) – 4th Place

Field Ordinance Battery. Rockfish
Field Ordinance Battery. Rockfish

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Vanquisher Spam lmao

Thoughts

So I know I’ve been banging on about crunch meta a lot, but even I didn’t realise it had gotten so bad that you could unironically put three Leman Russ Vanquishers on the table and top four a major. What a time to be alive (or dead, if you’re a tank). The more “portable” takeaway here is the clever combo of Field Ordnance Batteries with a Russ Exterminator to push up their AP (as far as -3 if you add Overlapping Fields of Fire). Guard players are going to be on the look out for ways to optimise their spend on indirect, and it feels like there could be broader uses here, though it depends a lot on how much Stealth there is in the meta, as -1 to hit hurts them bad (since Indirect and Heavy already cancel out). Still always love seeing unusual units do well, so congratulations both for rounding out the top four, and also inflicting tremendous psychic damage on our group chat where the Vanquisher is the watchword for “bad unit”.

The Best of the Rest

There were 9 more players on 4-1 records. They were:

  • 5th – Campbell “SRM” McLaughlin – Black Templars (Righteous Crusaders): See showdown.
  • 6th – Steve Trimble – Black Templars (Gladius Task Force): Heavily mechanised GTF Termplars with two Land Raiders, one stuffed with Sword Brethren and the other with Eradicators, supported by Brethren Impulsors.
  • 7th – Tarzan – Orks: Badruk takes another ride out on his farewell tour, this time being ferried around by a Gargantuan Squiggoth.
  • 8th – Kilen Murphy – Necrons (Hypercrypt Legion): Double Warrior brick with a Monolith and a pair of C’tan.
  • 9th – Keaton Marschman – Necrons (Hypercrypt Legion): Double C’tan and double Immortals with a Monolith, plus a big Lokust unit.
  • 10th – Michael Kriegler – Adepta Sororitas: Hull-heavy Sisters with two each of Castigators and Exorcists, plus the Junith/Sacresant block.
  • 11th – Isaac Terada – Necrons (Hypercrypt Legion): Triple C’tan, double Warriors and Monolith.
  • 12th – Bailey Strom – Adeptus Custodes: Infantry spam.
  • 13th – Aaron Bang – Necrons (Canoptek Court): Double Doomstalker, double Wraiths, double C’tan, plus one Immortal squad.

Frontier Open 2024

48-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Cheyenne, WY, US on April 27 2024. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Colin Kay – Black Templars (Ironstorm Spearhead) – 1st Place

Black Templars Techmarine. Credit: SRM

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

RepEx Rampage

Thoughts

Big Marine tanks. Many big Marine tanks, specifically, you get to do a bit where you can have four RepExes on the table thanks to the Templar ones being a different datasheet, and continuing the theme of psychic damage the mere concept of this will ripple back through time and obliterate the psyche of anyone playing in early 2020. Here and now, it’s another good player for crunch meta, as unless you have fully committed to the bit you are absolutely not winning a gun fight against this. Congratulations Colin.

Cody Jiru – Drukhari (Skysplinter Assault) – 2nd Place (Undefeated)

Credit: Wings

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Tantalus Skysplinter

Thoughts

It’s Skysplinter, but somehow manages to be fairly durable. Unsurprisingly, being able to drop a 4+ Invulnerable save and a reactive move on a Tantalus makes it a really strong centrepiece in Skysplinter, and alongside the presence of a Talos unit it gives this list far more spine than the average Drukhari setup. It does also have the cute effect of being a Transport that’s actually big enough to hold a Kabalite unit with a Court and Archon attached, which is a unit with lots of potential cool applications that’s normally shot down by not fitting in any of the boats. Here they can rampage to their heart’s content, also benefitting from Cover via Phantasmal Smoke if they hop out to turn on Skyborne Annihilation. Definitely like seeing a serious commitment to what the Tantalus can bring to the table here, good job Cody.

The Best of the Rest

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

  • 3rd – Tucker Rickey – Genestealer Cult (Ascension Day): Cult with two big blocks each of Acolytes and Neophytes, using the spare points to go in on the Aberrant plan.
  • 4th – Brandon Roddy – Blood Angels (Vanguard Spearhead): An interesting spin on Vanguard, using two big units of Death Company to take advantage of the skirmishing tricks (along with a full Dev Centurion squad, naturally).
  • 5th – Mike Pestilens – Chaos Space Marines: A comedy triple Land Raider build, where the joke is that some of them are full of Traitor Guardsmen.
  • 6th – Tom Cohen – Necrons (Hypercrypt Legion): C’tan and Lokhust Heavy-heavy Hypercrypt.
  • 7th – Matt Evans – Blood Angels (Sons of Sanguinius): Aggro Sons, with a big block each of foot and flying Death Company, the foot ones in a Land Raider.

Kennedy-Con 40K

44-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Cedar Rapids, IA, US on April 27 2024. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Kyle McCord – Black Templars (Gladius Task Force) – 1st Place

Black Templars Eradicators. Credit: SRM

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Gladius Templars

Thoughts

Clearly some sort of great Black Templars rallying cry went out this weekend and I missed the memo. This is a bit more of a conventional combined arms Templar list, leaning on the combo of their extra efficient Lancers and the powerful threat of an Advance/Charge turn from lots of Sword Brethren in GTF. Add in Eradicators out of the Raider to upset C’tan, and you’re definitely cooking, as Kyle showcased here.

The Best of the Rest

There were 6 more players on 4-1+ records. They were:

  • 2nd (4.5) – Jeff Steenbarger – Necrons (Hypercrypt Legion): C’tan/Doomsday/Wraith Hypercrypt, plus an enmitic Lokhust Heavy squad to scythe through Infantry.
  • 3rd – Devin Orchard – Necrons (Canoptek Court): Triple Wraiths, triple Doomstalker, double Immortals.
  • 4th – Matthew Runde – Chaos Space Marines (Slaves to Darkness): Gunline tanks with Abaddon, plus a double Legionary Rhino spliced up with some Masters of Execution.
  • 5th – Nicholas Bialek – Genestealer Cult: 2 and 2 of big Infantry units, Aberrants, and some Purestrains for early utility.
  • 6th – John Vuchetich – Necrons (Hypercrypt Legion):  Double C’tan, triple Immortals and a Monolith.
  • 7th – Zachary Moore – Necrons (Hypercrypt Legion): A slightly more go-wide build, cutting a C’tan and downgrading some Immortals to Warriors to add some Lokhust Heavies and lots of Flayed Ones.

ValleyCon 2024

37-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Upper Hutt, Wellington, New Zealand on April 26 2024. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Matt van Wijk – Grey Knights (Teleport Strike Force) – 1st Place

Grey Knight Nemesis Dreadknight. Credit: Colin Ward

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Ultracrunch Grey Knights

Thoughts

Where are the Terminators? Riding in Dreadknights, obviously. Anyway, this build was a harbinger of crunch meta, and it’s still going strong in the final stages of the meta that was. I do like the play of including Brother Captain Stern, as given how short this list is on Infantry it’s nice to have a single model that can potentially survive to pull off Action Secondaries on several consecutive turns between his inbuilt revival, Mists of Deimos and Haloed in Soulfire. Cool piece of tech, elevating this variant above the pack – well done Matt!

The Best of the Rest

There were 6 more players on 4-1 records. They were:

  • 2nd – Courtney Thomson – Thousand Sons (Cult of Magic): Lots of Tsons stalwarts, but also the extra curveball of a full 20-model Tzaangor unit with an Umbralefic Crystal-bearing Shaman.
  • 3rd – Steve Joll – Imperial Knights (Noble Lance): Maximum aggro with Canis, a Lancer and lots of Warglaives.
  • 4th – Shane Rongonui – Aeldari (Battle Host): A left-field bike-themed build here, maxing out on Windriders and peppering in some Shroud Runners, Shining Spears and Vypers. Also has Hornets, which I guess we can make honorary bikes.
  • 5th – Michael Stewart – Necrons (Hypercrypt Legion): Triple Immortals with two Monoliths.
  • 6th – Matthew Searle – Astra Militarum: A tank-skewed variant on the standard Guard tools, adding a second Tank Commander and going for two each of Manticores and Basilisks.
  • 7th – Josh Lloyd- Necrons (Hypercrypt Legion): Five C’tan fiesta.

The Deck Box Masters Grand Tournament April 27th-28th

27-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Halifax, NS, CA on April 27 2024. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Matthew Reeson – Necrons (Canoptek Court) – 1st Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Canoptek

Thoughts

Look we have to have one Necron event win pre-Dataslate, it would feel wrong otherwise. Lots of standard Canoptek toys here, and the main thing worth highlighting is that yes, it really is worth bringing Szeras along to buff one Immortal unit, because combining AP-1 with No Cover from Solar Pulse make such a huge difference to what they can target. Also like seeing a Reanimator here – I expect to see them out considerably more post-dataslate as people look to make their units go further. Great work from Matthew.

The Best of the Rest

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

  • 2nd – Leonard Wall – Necrons (Canoptek Court): Double C’tan, double Wraith, triple Doomstalker.
  • 3rd – Andrew Manuel – Blood Angels (Sons of Sanguinius): Jump pack-tacular, plus a Redeemer full of Assault Intercessors.
  • 4th – Mike Chapeau – Imperial Knights (Noble Lance): Scorching hot pressure from a teleporting Knight Valiant, with Canis riding shotgun.
  • 5th – Nathan Chow – Astra Militarum: Lots of the standard toys, extra artillery from Medusas, plus a big Scion squad for a nasty surprise.

Wrap Up

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