It gives me no pleasure to report that the elves are at it again. Kind of. We’ve got a slightly quieter week than the current norm, with only one really big event (Hellstorm’s Super All-stars), which featured an all-Aeldari final. Elsewhere things are once again looking fairly healthy – we’ve got more strong performances from Adeptus Mechanicus, a spicy Death Guard concoction and more besides. Plenty to cover as we go through:

Hellstorm SUPER All Stars
ORK-TOBERFEST 2023
Torneo Octubre WTC GTS Valencia
Queen City Orktoberfest 2023
Gaelcon 2023 Warhammer 40k tournament
Winchester 40K GT – October 2023

This week’s showdowns will be:

Adeptus Mechanicus (Rad-Cohort) vs Tyranids (Invasion Fleet) at ORK-TOBERFEST
Death Guard (Plague Company) vs World Eaters (Berzerker Warband) at Gaelcon

Prepare your best theatrical boos (if you have any left after Halloween) and let’s start with the Aeldari’s latest crimes.

SUPER All Stars – Hellstorm’s major 120+ Warhammer 40K Tournament

106-player, 7-round Major in England, GB on October 28 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Alex Petford – Aeldari (Battle Host) – 1st Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Wraithguard and Yncarne

Final Round Matchup

90 – 82 Victory against Josh Roberts – Aeldari (Battle Host).

Thoughts

Alex actually earned a double victory at Hellstorm, winning both the invitational component and the grand final against Josh, which is quite the performance. This Aeldari list features plenty of familiar faces, but also shows off the increasingly popular new tech of running a single Starweaver loaded with a Troupe and Troupe Master, which provides a pretty healthy amount of utility at an attractive price, particularly thanks to the re-embark shenanigans that Starweavers now have built in. It’s a cool addition to a familiar formula, and earned Alex the big win.

Josh Roberts – Aeldari (Battle Host) – 2nd Place

Avatar of Khaine. Credit: James “Boon” Kelling

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Double Avatar Wraithguard

Thoughts

In second place, narrowly defeated by Alex, we have Josh’s super top-heavy Aeldari list, packing both Avatars and the Wraithguard brick, with a minimal number of objective toys and lots of Night Spinners on top of that. No easy targets, lots of damage output and massive disruption from the Spinners makes this a real challenge for some armies to engage with, but it couldn’t quite take down the level of redundancy in the scoring tools Alex brought to bear. Still, another fantastic performance from Josh to take second.

Christopher Langton – Necrons (Awakened Dynasty) – 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

Triple C’tan

Thoughts

Hell yeaahhhhhh. Love C’tan, love running lots of C’tan, and I’m a big fan of lots of the other stuff going on here to boot. The Warrior blob with the Ablator and Orikan is a huge lift for many armies to deal with, and provides a great anchor for the C’tan to rampage around. The faster utility units like Tomb Blades are an ever more important part of Necron builds too, and Lokhust Heavies look increasingly attractive as the Ironstorm Marine lists start to rock in. I imagine this was a total blast to play, and clearly very potent into the current metagame, big props to Christopher on third.

Matt Goligher – Ultramarines (Gladius Task Force) – 4th Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Calgar, Aggressors and Redemptors

Thoughts

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it – this style of build was rolling hot prior to the Marine Codex arriving, and still looks very threatening after it. Redemptors remain a gold-standard all-rounder heavy hitter, and stacking Calgar into a big unit of Aggressors continues to result in an ultra-mobile, incredibly deadly centrepiece that ensures you don’t just die to big hordes. Congratulations to Matt for rounding out the top placings.

The Best of the Rest

There were 8 more players on 5-1 records. They were:

5th – James Webster – Aeldari: Extra go-wide Aeldari, sporting a fairly minimal Character contingent and lots of small-medium hulls and speedy Aspects.
6th – Charles Gould – Leagues of Votann: Thunderkyn and Hearthguard for days.
7th – Dom Maidlow – Chaos Space Marines: An Accursed Commune, Warp Talons and Nurglings ranging ahead of an Abaddon gunline.
8th – Callum Byers – Chaos Knights: Lots of War Dogs supported by some Daemon lone operatives and Rotigus as a durable problem-causer.
9th – Maciek Chamier – Aeldari: Yncarne and Wraithguard.
10th – Konrad Bartkiewicz – Aeldari: Double Avatar.
11th – Matthew McCurdy – Space Wolves (Stormlance): Stormlance ThunderCav (one big unit, one small, and the option of turn one Reserves where required from Hunter’s Instincts), with other scary melee units like Ragnar with Bladeguard backing them up. King.
12th – Mark Crombleholme – Necrons: Unusual midweight Necrons with lots of speedy board control units like Wraiths, Deathmarks and Tomb Blades, all centred around a big brick each of Lychguard and Lokhusts.

ORK-TOBERFEST 2023

51-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Ipswich, Queensland, AU on October 27 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Note: I have been told there was some sort of locked in 1st/2nd placings for the top table based on positions after round 4 which meant that the player in second in BCP may actually have come first here? It is a mystery!

The Showdown

Take and Hold – Search and Destroy – Chilling Rain

Ben Warrior – Cult Mechanicus (Rad-Cohort): Hordes of Skitarii, many in Duneriders, with three big Kataphron units at the back. Mercilessly efficient.
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vs.

Sam Lemin – Tyranids (Invasion Fleet): Monster mash with the all-rounder Dakkafex/One-Eye unit.
Army List - Click to Expand

Thoughts

The upward trend that AdMech have been on continues here, and I think Ben’s build looks really, really good. Breachers are the best all-purpose killers that AdMech have, and the choice to not bother with any other “big” stuff and focus on having lots of Skitarii to control the board and play for objectives seems smart. I like the inclusion of Technoarchaelogists to go with the non-mounted units too, they help create a nice big bubble of safety for the Kataphrons, and here that’s going to be exceptional at preventing the Trygon from causing mischief. Over on the Tyranid side we have another very streamlined list, packing in lots of the most point-efficient big bugs, and including the very versatile Dakkafex unit and a bunch of objective tools alongside them.

The mission here is extremely vanilla, so this is going to turn entirely on how both armies deal with the other, and honestly they both have some big things going for them. One of the challenges that some armies face into AdMech is that the Kataphron’s ability to shoot back with Vengeful Fallout can make it so it’s not possible to safely engage them at range at all, but that’s not the case here. Exocrines can both do some actual damage to the unit when they shoot (though the Feel No Pain on the units with Dominii mitigates that), aren’t an ideal target for the clapback if they do so from outside 18″, and also might just not get the return fire – this Tyranid list has lots of options for trying to stick Battle-shock on a unit prior to trying to deck it. Much the same goes for the Maleceptors, so the AdMech definitely can’t just rely on impervious Kataphron deathbricks to carry the day.

What they can make good use of is their large Skitarii/Transport contingent, which comes up trumps here. They can quickly hose down gargoyles, and the Vanguard inside are very dangerous to both those and things like the solo Pyrovores and Neurolictors thanks to being Anti-Infantry. Because the cheaper Tyranid stuff is going to get picked off, they’ll have to start making plays for objectives with their bigger tools, and on Search and Destroy that’s pretty likely to expose them to getting blasted by Kataphrons. The volume of Skitarii means that they can’t just switch to aggro to overcome them either. That means they probably have to modulate their ambitions around how many objectives they play for, leaving this as a fairly cagey game, and I think the AdMech can turn that to their advantage by then selecting Homers and Bring it Down as fixed objectives, and relying on their good board presence and deep strike prevention to cap how much the bugs can get from Tactical. I’d expect broadly similar Primary scores on both sides here (though the player going second has an obvious advantage), so reliably pushing a strong Secondary score would be enough to win it, and whether or not that’s how they pulled it off, the AdMech were indeed victorious.

Result

Cult Mechanicus (Rad-Cohort) Victory – 93 – 75

Ben Warrior – Cult Mechanicus (Rad-Cohort) – 1st Place

The List

See showdown

Archetype

Mechanised AdMech

Yes OK I know they’re all Mechanised, you know what I mean.

Final Round Matchup

93 – 75 Victory against Sam Lemin – Tyranids (Invasion Fleet).

Thoughts

Mostly covered in the showdown, I really like what Ben has come up with here. Bluntly, three Breacher blocks is sufficient killing power into almost anything, and the risk with the army after that is getting boxed in and losing on objectives, so investing tonnes of points into a much more durable and wide-ranging board control contingent than normal makes a tonne of sense. Big fan, impressive stuff!

Wayne Russell – Chaos Space Marines (Slaves to Darkness) – 2nd Place (Undefeated)

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Brawler Goodstuff

Thoughts

Chosen and jump pack guys to roam the board while backed by Abaddon’s shootiest soldiers continues to be one of the strongest armies right now, able to engage with lists of almost any type and come away triumphant. I don’t have much more to say than that – great work Wayne on the undefeated second place.

The Best of the Rest

There were 6 more players on 41 records. They were:

3rd – David Trueman – Space Marines (Ironstorm Spearhead): Pure shooty hull spam.
4th – Jacob Warn – Genestealer Cult (Ascension Day): Horde with a couple of units in Trucks for board control.
5th – Joshua Mcgowan – Leagues of Votann: Sagitaur and Hearthguard spam.
6th – Tristan Gelling – Astra Militarum: Lots of Death Korps tarpit units, Scouting Chimeras with Catachans, and lots of Russes and some Rapiers.
7th – Peteru Lesa – Aeldari: Avatar and Wraithguard.
8th – Darren Auchter – Tyranids (Vanguard Onslaught): A unique take on Vanguard spamming Melee Warriors with Winged Primes to unlock all the juicy detachment tricks. Lots of Neurolictors, Maleceptors and Exocrines too, because all those are still bargain priced.

Torneo Octubre WTC GTS Valencia

42-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in València, Comunidad Valenciana, ES on October 28 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Alejandro Mancuso Serrano – Blood Angels (Gladius Task Force) – 1st Place

Blood Angels Death Company. Credit: Jack Hunter

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

The Amazing Aggressor Flying Circus

Final Round Matchup

18 – 2 Victory against Isma – Ynnari (Battle Host).

Thoughts

Looks like the cunning plan we saw a few weeks ago of using the Librarian Dreadnought’s Wings of Sanguinius to hurl Aggressors into the mix wasn’t just a fluke, as here Alejandro has taken down an event on much the same plan. Lots of Death Company (who are just generally pretty good at their current price) already forces the opponent to play pretty cautiously, and trying to account for the threat of redeploying Aggressors or Grav Devastators on top of that is a big headache. Great use of an unusual tool here!

The Best of the Rest

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

2nd (4.5-0.5) – Francisco pellon lopez – Ynnari (Battle Host): A big unit of Wraithblades acting as an anchor for the Yncarne and lots of Scourges.
3rd – Pedro Alcaraz – Aeldari (Battle Host): Double Avatar Wraithguard.
4th – Jose Ibáñez – Necrons (Awakened Dynasty): Classic Warrior/Lychguard/Lokhust Heavies.

Queen City Orktoberfest 2023

40-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Springfield, MO, United States on October 28 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Chris Green – Dark Angels (Gladius Task Force) – 1st Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Infantry GTF

Final Round Matchup

100 – 27 Victory against Peyton Preece – Genestealer Cult (Ascension Day).

Thoughts

Another “business as usual” flavour of Marine list here, going for the option of Aggressors in a Redeemer and adding a bit of extra Dark Angels spice from Azrael, providing a steady stream of additional Command Points to keep the good times rolling, and also adding a bit of counter-charge heft for any opponents that get too pushy. Otherwise, it’s just lots of basically efficient units that the opponent has to handle while avoiding a game-ending Aggressor suckerpunch. Congrats to Chris for giving Big Azrael a big day out.

The Best of the Rest

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

2nd (4.5-0.5) – Brent Simon – Aeldari (Battle Host): Yncarne/Wraithguard
3rd – Gabriel Patino – Chaos Knights (Traitoris Lance): Rampager + Dogs.
4th – Brian Preece – Necrons (Awakened Dynasty): Szeras with two Warrior bricks and two Doomsdays.
5th – Peyton Preece – Genestealer Cult: Horde with two trucks.
6th – Miles Bethell – Ultramarines (Ironstorm Spearhead): Bobby G, Dreadnoughts and a pair of RepExes.
7th – Landon Crowder – Tyranids (Synaptic Nexus): Nexus Monster Mash.

Gaelcon 2023 Warhammer 40k tournament

29-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Dublin, D, Ireland on October 28 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Priority Targets – Chilling Rain – Sweeping Engagement

Pearce Condren – Death Guard (Plague Company): Infantry-heavy Death Guard, going for lots of Plague Marines in Rhinos, each including one unit with a Putrifier for damage spikes, plus two units of Deathshrouds escorting nasty killers. Plaguebursts and Nurglings round stuff out.
Army List - Click to Expand

vs.

Joseph Musgrave – World Eaters (Berzerker Warband): Angron, Jakhals and Eightbound
Army List - Click to Expand

Thoughts

Excellent news – my spy network (motto – it’s not just Gunum) has outdone itself this week, and brought me thoughts from both players in this final. My snap thoughts on it would be to favour the Death Guard, as the transports loaded with nasty units ready to jump out and hammer Mortal Wounds into valuable Eightbound look like a pain for a melee list to deal with, but lets see what the players thought, starting with Joseph.

Joseph – World Eaters: Knowing that the Death Guard had more resources than the World Eaters, and the Plod Squad had an excellent pilot with a very solid passive fixed secondary plan in mind, I felt I had to push this game. If I sit back and let Pearce swarm the middle, it’s over. Therefore, I chose a Fixed Secondary plan of Assassinate and Bring it Down to support the bloodletting (very Khornite of me).

Having held the DG back with a well-placed small Exalted unit T1, I went hard T2 with a big push but bounced quite hard. Some high rolls on 4++ Invulnerable Saves saved two Lords of Contagion from Angron and Exalted respectively, which if it went my way puts Pearce on the back foot and instantly makes it a close game, with the pressure then on Pearce to stop the second push into his units. However, the game slowly slid away after the bounce with the World Eaters running out of resources to chase the varying units I needed to take the game back. The Chaos Gods being what they are, they decided to favour the Plod Squad on this day despite a rare moment of strategic insight guiding the World Eaters!

—

So the Death Guard took the win – what was their plan?

Going into this game I felt the advantage rested with my Death Guard Plod Squad. World eaters have the advantage in terms of speed, but I’ve a large number of units and transports which the World Eaters are forced to crack in melee, at which point the contents can retaliate. However, their speed had them well equipped to capitalize on any mistakes from the boys in green.

My game plan was for Fixed Secondaries (the default strategy for the army), taking Deploy Teleport Homers and Cleanse. Joe’s list lacked sufficient characters to make Assassinate a viable option (unless I fancied killing Angron over and over, a daunting prospect). Storm Hostile was also a non starter as this mission only warranted holding 2 objectives, and spreading out to cover multiple objectives would leave me vulnerable to the World Eaters speed. This mission proved somewhat problematic, as it dents a significant aspect of my list, the ability to hold down my opponent’s primary, as they player who goes second has a very easy path to a bonus 15VP at the end of the game (and the World Eaters were going second).

With this in mind, I created a wall of tanks to attempt to repel the World Eaters, with both Lord of Contagion/Deathshroud squads deployed behind to counter charge when needed. The goal was to effective hold position in a “triangle” around 3 objectives while scoring cleanse/homers.

Joe chose Assassination & Bring it Down, meaning this would be a quick and aggressive affair! An aggressive strategy was required for the underdogs as a more “standard” game would likely see the Death Guard grind down the opposition.

The first World Eater wave was a small force of 2 3 man squads that managed to tag my tank wall and make for some very awkward disembarks and movement to prime for the second World Eater wave. Elsewhere Ron screamed at a plagueburst crawler till it was reduced to scrap.

The arrival of the second wave was decisive to the outcome of the match, with the subsequent fight phase dictating the outcome of the game. Fortunately Papa Nurgle provided me with some very good fortune (clearly stolen from the Aeldari), with the World Eater assault bouncing and inflicting minimal casualties.

The remainder of the game saw me play quite defensively with my remaining characters to deny Assassination points while continuing to maintain my secondary scoring and plod towards victory. The World Eaters lacked sufficient pieces at this point due to the earlier bounce to maintain sufficient pressure.
Slow and Steady wins the race!

—

Good to see some strong tactical theory on both sides – both players recognised that the World Eaters were locked into playing aggressively, so tuned their plans to maximise their chances in that context. It also highlights the strong trend towards building for Fixed Secondaries that’s on the rise in the UK/Ireland metagame, and how valuable having multiple plans can be. Great stuff from both players there, and thanks for sending it in.

Result

Death Guard (Plague Company) Victory – 88 – 80

Pearce Condren – Death Guard (Plague Company) – 1st Place

The List

See showdown.

Archetype

Infantry Death Guard

Thoughts

I really like this list, the tools it’s packing makes it far more mobile in controlling the board than the Death Guard average, and going hard on the Putrifiers gives it access to much more reliable damage spikes than the opponent might expect. It also has good Secondary flexibility, as the writeup shows, making it an excellent all-rounder. I think this is outright my favourite Death Guard build I’ve seen since the Balance Dataslate, and is where I’d start if I was planning to run them tomorrow!

The Best of the Rest

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

2nd – Colin Power – Aeldari (Battle Host): Yncarne/Wraithguard.
3rd – Joseph Musgrave – World Eaters (Berzerker Warband): Angron, lots of Eightbound and Jakhals.
4th – Alec Cornelius – Grey Knights (Teleport Strike Force): Triple Librarian, lots of Terminator MSUs, the full Purifier brick and some Assassins.
5th – Daire O’Mahony – Tyranids (Crusher Stampede): Incredible energy here, basically just one each of a laundry list of gigantic monsters.
6th – Jarlath Moloney – World Eaters (Berzerker Warband): The other side of World Eaters – relatively minimal Eightbound, lots of Berzerkers. Still Angron though, obviously.

Winchester 40K GT – October 2023

28-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Winchester, England, GB on October 28 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Martyn Cooper – Astra Militarum (Combined Regiment) – 1st Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Board Presence and Big Guns

Thoughts

A win for the Astra Militarum to round things out today, going with a fairly classic (but not seen for a while) Guard strategy of just flooding the table with lots of small Infantry units to gum things up and take objectives, then pounding the enemy to dust with big guns while that’s dealt with. There’s a few neat additional touches like the Regimental Attaches to amp up the artillery and the Kasrkin as a flexible way to push some extra damage (including the option of doing it early by Scouting the Chimera forward), but at its core this is very effectively doing what the Militarum love to do – sending waves of expendable bodies forward to die for the Emperor while the tanks and the stars of popular novel series do the heavy lifting. Well done Martyn.

The Best of the Rest

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

2nd – Louis Ballington – Space Wolves (Ironstorm Spearhead): Ironstorm Whirlwinds and Redemptors with the Wolf Character dreads and some cheap Fenrisian Wolves mixed in.
3rd – Matthew Truell – Astra Militarum (Combined Regiment): Hardcore board flood infantry spam, wih some Death Riders adding a bit of extra mobility.
4th – Graham Howard – Chaos Space Marines (Slaves to Darkness): Brawler Goodstuff with some Forgefiends and one big Obliterator unit.
5th – Chris Calton – T’au Empire (Kauyon): Broadside and Crisis spam.

Competitive Innovations in 10th: Aeldari Hell(storm)

SUPER All Stars – Hellstorm’s major 120+ Warhammer 40K Tournament

Alex Petford – Aeldari (Battle Host) – 1st Place

The List

Archetype

Final Round Matchup

Thoughts

Josh Roberts – Aeldari (Battle Host) – 2nd Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

Christopher Langton – Necrons (Awakened Dynasty) – 3rd Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

Matt Goligher – Ultramarines (Gladius Task Force) – 4th Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

The Best of the Rest

ORK-TOBERFEST 2023

The Showdown

Take and Hold – Search and Destroy – Chilling Rain

Thoughts

Result

Ben Warrior – Cult Mechanicus (Rad-Cohort) – 1st Place

The List

Archetype

Final Round Matchup

Thoughts

Wayne Russell – Chaos Space Marines (Slaves to Darkness) – 2nd Place (Undefeated)

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

The Best of the Rest

Torneo Octubre WTC GTS Valencia

Alejandro Mancuso Serrano – Blood Angels (Gladius Task Force) – 1st Place

The List

Archetype

Final Round Matchup

Thoughts

The Best of the Rest

Queen City Orktoberfest 2023

Chris Green – Dark Angels (Gladius Task Force) – 1st Place

The List

Archetype

Final Round Matchup

Thoughts

The Best of the Rest

Gaelcon 2023 Warhammer 40k tournament

The Showdown

Priority Targets – Chilling Rain – Sweeping Engagement

Thoughts

Result

Pearce Condren – Death Guard (Plague Company) – 1st Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

The Best of the Rest

Winchester 40K GT – October 2023

Martyn Cooper – Astra Militarum (Combined Regiment) – 1st Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

The Best of the Rest

Wrap Up

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