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Competitive Innovations in 10th: A Challenger Approaches pt.2

By James "One_Wing" Grover

Me again. Did you know there was a whole tonne of Warhammer this past weekend? That includes one event (Warzone: Dice Goblin) which I shamefully failed to notice had used the Dataslate and new Ork/Custodes books, so well done to them, and we get to enjoy looking at that today alongside:

  • Ozcon GT
  • High Noon Showdown 2024
  • Warzone: Dice Goblin
  • Incursion Events 40K GT 27-28/04/2024
  • Red Dragon April GT
Tomorrow Lowest of Men will regale you with tales from:
  • 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

If you’re looking for any of the following, you want part 1 from yesterday:

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

Ozcon GT

48-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in West Plains, MO, United States on April 27 2024. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Kyle Lamperez – Dark Angels (Ironstorm Spearhead) – 1st Place

Azrael. Credit: Rockfish
Azrael. Credit: Rockfish

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Darkstormraven

Thoughts

The Stormraven’s pre-dataslate rampage continues here, alongisde some common dakka options and some popular support choices from Dark Angels, providing protection and CP galore. Although the Stormraven catches a points increase in the Dataslate, I suspect this version of the build is very much still real, as it needs to free up fewer additional points than either double Stormraven builds or Black Templar ones. I would not be surprised to see Kyle back with this again in the near future, for now congratulations!

Caleb Bauder – Tyranids (Invasion Fleet) – 2nd Place (Undefeated)

Maleceptor. Credit: Rockfish
Maleceptor. Credit: Rockfish

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Monsters Whoms’t Mash

Thoughts

Bugs! Big bugs! We’ve seen plenty of this sort of thing, so there’s not too much to explain beyond highlighting the continuing power and flexibility of the One-Eye/Dakkafex brick. I expect to see more of this sort of army post-dataslate simply because the multi-C’tan builds that give it fits will be less common (and this build already has 10pts spare to cover the increase on two of its three Gargoyle units, so not much change needed). Well done Caleb for taking an undefeated second even while those big predators are still on the rampage!

The Best of the Rest

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

  • 3rd – Connor Johnson – Thousand Sons (Cult of Magic): Another showing for the Forgefiend spin on Tsons, adding a Mutalith as well for target saturation.
  • 4th – Kenton Evans – World Eaters (Berzerker Warband): Crunch meta World Eaters with a Lord of Skulls and a Maulerfiend.
  • 5th – Eli Harvey – Adepta Sororitas: Infantry/Transport-heavy Sisters.
  • 6th – Chris Campbell – Chaos Knights: Desecrator and Dogs.
  • 7th – Samuel Manuel – Dark Angels (Ironstorm Spearhead): Another Darkstormraven build, elevated by a literary list name.
  • 8th – Dana Thibeau- World Eaters: Lots of Eightbound and a Lord of Skulls.

High Noon Showdown 2024

44-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Oklahoma City, OK, United States on April 27 2024. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Kyle Kachelmeyer – T’au Empire (Kauyon) – 1st Place

TY7 Devilfish. Credit: Rockfish
TY7 Devilfish. Credit: Rockfish

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Triptide and Hulls

Thoughts

Overwhelm them with gunships and Riptides – it already works for Tau in Kauyon, and it’s probably going to be even better once their Codex finally limps into playability. Almost there. Not much more to say here other than that I enjoy the Exemplar of Kauyon Fireblade for an extra nasty turn 2 Breacher surprise. Well done Kyle.

The Best of the Rest

There were 7 more players on 4-1 records. They were:

  • 2nd – Douglas Labov – Khorne Daemons (Daemonic Incursion): Hell yeah pure Khorne Daemons, always fun to see. Here we’ve got a Daemon Prince, Skarbrand and a Bloodthirster as the biggest hitters, with two Rendmasters providing a bit of flexibility as to where the really big damage falls.
  • 3rd – Steve Goodrich – Orks (Waaagh! Tribe): Aggro Trukk spam with Ghaz and Mozrog to provide additional hammers.
  • 4th – Sean Hemingway – Aeldari (Battle Host): Avatar, shooty hulls and speedy Aspects.
  • 5th – Hayden Webb – Chaos Knights: Dogs and Nurglings.
  • 6th – Cam Hawkins – Blood Angels (Sons of Sanguinius): ALl in on Jump Pack death Company, packing three full units with Astaroth, Lemartes and a Chaplain in charge, then finishing with a full Assault Intercessor squad lead by Corbulo in a Redeemer. Chainswords go brr.
  • 7th – Trevor Madden – Imperial Knights: An aggressive triple big build, combining a Lancer, Errant and Canis.
  • 8th – John Storm – Necrons (Awakened Dynasty): An unusual double Monolith Awakened build, leveraging the Phasal Subjugator to boost up their output.

Warzone: Dice Goblin

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

I didn’t notice when splitting up parts, but this event was post-dataslate. Normally I like to reward such dedication to the advancement of the meta with a front-and-centre showing, apologies for missing it!

The Showdown

Supply Drop – Chilling Rain – Search & Destroy

Kris Ku – Chaos Knights (Traitoris Lance)
Army List - Click to Expand

vs.

Z Martin – Aeldari (Battle Host)

Army List - Click to Expand

Thoughts

Oh no, I’m being tempted. Anyone who saw what I was playing for most of 8th and 9th will know that I love transport-heavy Aeldari/Drukhari mixed builds, and we’ve got a premium example on show here. Taking advantage of newly cheaper Storm Guardians to provide sticky objectives and (via the Yvraine unit) a surprisingly durable midfield position holder, this list can bait foes into position where all its big guns can do horrible things to them, with reprisals mostly landing on expendable Reavers. I’m a little surprised we haven’t seen more of 3×3 Reavers in Ynnari as they’re an incredibly good value unit, bringing a combination of speed, expendability and a heat lance shot that benefits from the re-rolls. This list looks awesome, I want to play it, now let’s see what it’s up against.

Chaos Knights haven’t really changed in the Dataslate, but they’re still very strong and this list is pretty scary to the Aeldari even with all their big guns. Brigands will chew through pretty much any of the opposition here, and there’s just lots of Knights to deal with.

Sticky objectives definitely help with that though, and the Aeldari definitely want to aim for a cautious game here. There big advantage is that they can definitely kill enough Knights over the game to max Bring it Down and should trivially get a good score on Homers at the same time. The Knights don’t have nearly as good options for forcing Secondaries, so as long as the Aeldari can focus on denying Primary to the Knights, or at least keeping pace with them, they’ve got a good chance of taking a win. Supply drop is essentially the perfect mission for this plan too!

As ever in response to that kind of play, the Knights need to just get aggressive and aim to create a turn where the Aeldari don’t kill enough of the imminent threats, and then get rolled over. Both outcomes seem plausible, but the mission tips it in the Aeldari’s favour to lock in a low-scoring win, and from the margin I’m guessing that’s what happened.

Result

Aeldari (Battle Host) Victory – 66 – 42

Z Martin – Aeldari (Battle Host) – 1st Place

Craftworld Mymeara Storm Guardians. Credit: Jack Hunter

The List

See showdown

Archetype

Combined Arms Ynnari

Thoughts

I am in love with this army list. It has so many of my favourite things. Can I face painting a second unit of Storm Guardians? God help me I might need to find out. Well done Z.

The Best of the Rest

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

  • 2nd – Kris Ku – Chaos Knights (Traitoris Lance): See showdown
  • 3rd – Chris Dailey – Astra Militarum (Combined Regiment): Double Dorns, dodging the newly increased artillery tax in a very direct fashion.
  • 4th – David Purcell – Astra Militarum (Combined Regiment): Alternatively, invest in Russes – massed Tank Commanders, an Exterminator, an Eradicator and somehow three Vanquishers for the second time this week. I guess they are real cheap for what they are now. Crunch meta might be reaching a middle.
  • 5th – Dustin Brown – Space Wolves (Stormlance Task Force): Lots of ThunderCav and some shooty tanks, including a newly cheap Vindicator.
  • 6th – Cameron Zareie – Thousand Sons: Lots of Rubricae and Characters, mixing things up a bit by adding two Tzaangor units with Shamans as mid-quality board control.

Incursion Events 40K GT 27-28/04/2024

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

Rob Lebeau – Adepta Sororitas (Hallowed Martyrs) – 1st Place

Credit: Keewa

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Board Control Sisters

Thoughts

That’s so much stuff, good grief. Going relatively light on Characters ensures this spin on Sororitas has a lot of units on the table, and lots of Transports means they have layered defences. Add in some hammer blows from Repentia and Vahl’s unit and it’s a very potent all-round recipe, well done Rob.

The Best of the Rest

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

  • 2nd – Ross Tully – World Eaters (Berzerker Warband): An unusually Berzerker-heavy spin on World Eaters, packing in 30 of them and going lighter on Eightbound than the norm to compensate. Angron and a Winged Prince provide big hammers on top of that.
  • 3rd – James Shapiro – Ultramarines (Vanguard Spearhead): Teleporting Centurion/Infiltrating Calgar spectacular, with Eradicators as the partners of choice for the latter.
  • 4th – Tom Hamshire – Drukhari (Skysplinter Assault): Standard 2/4 Raider/Venom setup Skysplinter.
  • 5th – Craig Douglas – T’au Empire: Suits galore, with Riptides, Broadsides and a Crisis unit.

Red Dragon April GT

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

François Lalonde – Blood Angels (Sons of Sanguinius) – 1st Place

Flesh Tearers Death Company. Credit: Drybrush Threepwood

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Trade-focused Jump Pack Spam

Thoughts

A lot of unsurprising choices for a Blood Angels build here, but there is some tinkering with the formula that I think adds a good amount of value. Packing 2×5 Jump Company after the main squad and 2×5 foot ones in a staging Rhino gives the list lots of moderately expendable ways to project threat and make value trades. That helps mitigate the main risk for hammer blow builds like this, which is that if the opponent can roll with it and hit back, you can sometimes just lose. Adding options for a cagier game seems like a smart move, and well-rewarded for François here, congratulations!

The Best of the Rest

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

  • 2nd – Matthew Salouros – Grey Knights (Teleport Strike Force): Dreadknights and two big Terminator bricks, a Brotherhood unit with Draigo and a Paladin squad with a Grand Master and the Sigil. I continue to highly endorse the Sigil on Paladins instead of a GMDK in these builds, glad to see some evidence in support of that!
  • 3rd – Zach Comeau – T’au Empire (Kauyon): Cyclic crisis MSUs and Riptides.
  • 4th – Jeremy “Curie” Atkinson – Dark Angels (Ironstorm Spearhead): Double Darkstormraven.

Wrap Up

Whoaaa we’re (more than) halfway there. Come back tomorrow for the final part of this week’s roundup, just in time for you all to head out and rack up a bunch of post-dataslate games for me to dig into!

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