It’s a whole new metagame (a few stragglers excepted) and the delightful scent of novelty is in the air. For some reason, it smells like fungus beer.

We’ve got new points to take old favourites down a peg, and lots of experimentation with the new Ork codex that takes the faction in all sorts of directions, so let’s get into things.

I’m covering the whole week for a change, and today I’ll be hitting:

The Richmond Open 40K Event Hosted By Away Games
Slagmark Fyn
Clan Wars Scottish Open 5
Loaded Dice Games May the 4th Open
PCG Hosts Lightly Salted’s 40k Spring GT

On Friday, I’ll take a look at:

Open de Carcassonne
The Saffron Walden GT
AZ Warhammer 40K League 2024 Spring Championship
Winchester 40K GT – May 2024

For this week’s Showdown vote only post-Dataslate events were eligible, and the Patrons are clearly feeling Orky too, as they’ve selected:

Chaos Space Marines vs Bully Boyz at Clan Wars
A Bully Boyz mirror match at Loaded Dice Games

I’ll also have a bonus Showdown from the Winchester GT for Friday, since I was in it, and though the event was smaller than the normal cutoff I want to write about my list, and no one can stop me.

The Richmond Open 40K Event Hosted By Away Games

130-player, 6-round Grand Tournament in Doswell, VA, United States on May 04 2024. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Joshua Campbell – Necrons (Canoptek Court) – 1st Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Canoptek Court

Thoughts

Necrons got hit reasonably hard in the dataslate, and their dominance of the 4-1 bracket has dropped significantly, but there’s still plenty of power there as Joshua shows here. Point cuts have pushed a consolidation towards fewer units, as it’s no longer economical to spam Plasmancers with 5-model Immortal units, and 2+ Doomstalkers is essentially a lock now as they’re the main part of the package that didn’t go up in price. Still finding space for three units of Wraiths gives this build a tonne of durability, and taking a Transcendant C’tan helps provide flexibility in where to apply some pressure – funnily enough, my takeaway after my last run with Court was that I wanted to swap the Nightbringer out for a Transcendant and that was before the price changes – now it’s a fairly obvious call. You’ve definitely got to work harder to win with this now, but it’s also still very much doable, so congratulations to Joshua on pushing through.

David Adelman – Chaos Daemons (Daemonic Incursion) – 2nd Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Counterpunch Melee Daemons

Thoughts

The name says it all here – this is gambling big on Orks being a major part of the metagame, and it certainly looks like that was a good call – Orks were everywhere at the weekend, and the ability to carve through lots of 2W and 3W bodies is a very valuable one. Daemons do that up close better than most, with the added upside that Skarbrand hits so hard that he can even go through Meganobz with their 4+ Feel No Pain on, particularly vital given Bully Boyz seems to be the early leader in popularity. This list demands that opponents come forward in force to try and knock the Great Unclean One off a key point, then has a massive sliding scale of possible counterattacks to select from, able to be tuned to one that will efficiently devastate whatever they strike. The Bloodcrushers in particular are in the sweet spot where they have a very good chance of trading up, particularly with Skarbrand around and a Blood Throne to hand out buffs.

No idea if going this hard stays viable once the initial Ork excitement dies down a bit, but right now it’s got some real moves, with the added bonus that Be’lakor keeps it reasonable against gunlines. I’ll confess to having been a little worried that Daemons got no love in the dataslate, but hits to some of the top predators have clearly helped them quite a bit, as they’ve shot up in our stats, well done David for contributing strongly to that with his 5.5-0.5 finish.

Dustin Zeliff – T’au Empire (Kauyon) – 3rd Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Mont’ka Waiting Room

Thoughts

Even before Mont’ka turns it up to 11 we’ve been seeing more and more of this style of build, relying on the Ghostkeel and Riptide providing good grindy damage on a speedy, hard to kill body, allowing enduring board control, particularly in collaboration with all those Breacherfish. I’m betting that pretty much this list (with Longstrike swapped out, RIP to a real one) will still be around with a new detachment coat of paint soon enough, and well done to Dustin for getting some precognitive reps in.

Steven Fitch – Blood Angels (Ironstorm Spearhead) – 4th Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Go-Wide Bloodstorm

Thoughts

This is kind of cute – given the run of crunch meta we’ve been having, most lists are tooling to take down tanks, and the answer that Steven has come up with here is to go wider than it’s normally possible too with mid-tier, broadly applicable threats. That’s feasible thanks to dipping into Blood Angels for the bargain Baal Predator and using the newly discounted Vindicator to make up the numbers. The latter is also something you’re very free to use for board pressure thanks to it being able to shoot in combat, and the list in general has more tools to throw away than you sometimes get in Ironstorm. A cool way to adapt to the adaptations that foes are making, glad to see it make good, well done Steven (who made it all the way to the finals against Joshua)!

The Best of the Rest

There were 9 more players on 5-1 records. They were:

5th – Jeffrey Kolodner – Adepta Sororitas: Lots of Battle Sisters backed by a double dose of Warsuits.
6th – Mark Hertel – Ultramarines (Gladius Task Force): Land Raider spam continues unabated for Mark, now featuring a pair of Redeemers and a Crusader, the latter stuffed with an Aggressor/Calgar brick.
7th – Stephen Henry – Necrons (Canoptek Court): Two C’tan, two Wraith bricks and three Doomstalkers.
8th – Evan Bernett – Death Guard: Crunchy Death Guard, adding a Land Raider full of Plague Marines to a melange of Daemon Engines.
9th – Luke Purcell – Blood Angels (Sons of Sanguinius): A go-wide Herohammer spin on Sons, taking lots of MSUs of various stripes and seeding in powerful Characters like Dante and Mephiston.
10th – Phillip Kohrmann – Imperial Knights: Canis and an Atropos, backed by three of each Armiger.
11th – Jason Melberg – Grey Knights: Three Dreadknights and a Land Raider Redeemer for crunch, Draigo with a Terminator MSU and Crowe’s Purifiers.
12th – Patrick Healey – Necrons (Canoptek Court): Double C’tan, triple Doomstalker, double Wraiths.
13th – Jonathan Kolson – Grey Knights: Three Dreadknights and three Terminator MSUs with a Librarian in each.

Slagmark Fyn

All the lists for this event can be found in New Recruit.

Alexander Jessen – Thousand Sons – 1st Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Scarab Revival

Thoughts

Scarab Occults are back, apparently. The Dataslate released them from point hike hell, along with a discount on Cultists to fill out an army alongside them, and in general the Tsons got a very light touch (only a couple of increases to their auto-take Enhancements), leaving them well positioned to attack the metagame. Scarabs give you a rock-hard core that can stand up to a wave of Orks while brutally hosing them down in response, and that’s looking to be an increasingly valuable asset (though obviously going hard on Flamers helps a lot in that matchup too). Lethal Hits from their Sorceror combined with access to Ensorcelled Infusion means they can also chip through bigger targets, still very important, and the redeploy option forces incredible early caution in some games, which you can then capitalise on by denying scoring with double-moving Cultists or Tzaangors. The Rubric/Rhino builds are still fantastic as well, but it looks like Tzeentch is handing out options in the new metagame, so be on the lookout. Congratulations Alexander.

The Best of the Rest

There were 8 more players on 4-1 records. They were:

2nd – Andreas Hegaard – Orks (Bully Boyz): Meganobz and Nobz with Ghaz, a Tellyporta and some Trukks to put some of them in, plus a Beastboss leading a Squighog unit for some bonus pressure.
3rd – Kasper Højbak – Adeptus Custodes (Auric Champions): One of the few somewhat interesting options to emerge from the Custodes book – lots of Characters, Caladius Grav Tanks (which are as good as ever) and a small number of Infantry, here a Watcher unit and a small Custodian unit, with a Land Raider for one to ride in.
4th – Marcus Jensen – World Eaters: 10/5 Berzerkers in Rhinos, one big Exalted unit and a small unit of each Eightbound flavour, with the Epic antihero trio and a MoE with the Glaive in charge.
5th – Jakob Skovsbo – Grey Knights: Ultracrunch max, six Dreadknights, a Land Raider and Canis Rex.
6th – Lasse Blichfeldt – Chaos Daemons: A tarpitty board-control Daemons variant, using Be’lakor, Rotigus and a Gift GUO as centrepieces then Bloodletters amped up by a Rendmaster to counter-punch.
7th – Thim Le – World Eaters: Crunchy World Eaters with a Lord of Skulls and Maulerfiend.
8th – Killi – Aeldari: Speedy Aspects, indirect and a Skathach Wraithknight.
9th – Morten N Troelsen – Chaos Daemons: Rotigus and a Gift GUO to tarpit, Kairos and an Everstave LoC for shooting and a Bloodcrusher/Rendmaster counterpunch package.

Clan Wars Scottish Open 5

41-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Scotland, GB on May 04 2024. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Take and Hold – Chilling Rain – Search and Destroy

Innes Wilson – Chaos Space Marines (Slaves to Darkness)
Army List - Click to Expand

vs.

Larry Martin – Orks (Bully Boyz)
Army List - Click to Expand

Thoughts

My assessment on looking at this is that although the Ork list is pretty scary, Innes has good tools to take it down – he stages his counter-charge stuff in Transports, which makes it hard for the Orks to proactively handle them, and has plenty of ways to protect his gunline while it does mean things to lots of Orks. The only thing that gives me pause is the Deployment map – that might let the Orks close the vice. I reached out to Innes for his take, and this is what he said:

Innes: I felt very confident into this matchup – I have the damage output to kill through Mega Nobz, and the shooting to keep the vehicles honest. The plan of absorbing the first Waaagh and then running away from the second has worked very well into my Ork testing and went just the same here. I took first turn, jammed into Ghaz and low rolled a bit giving him easy access to the middle with me not killing him, which meant Abaddon had to come out to play.

Some aggressive deep strikes and wrapping of Transports to prevent good disembarks and ingresses (as well as Abaddon ripping Ghaz’s squad in half) meant that Larry had to spend his second Waaagh getting stuck into my chaff units rather than hitting my damage on either the shooting or melee front. With the Feel No Pain and speed gone I was able to concentrate on killing everything except the two Meganob squads (each on one objective) and limit his scoring by not opening up any long charges, locking in a safe win as my Fixed Objectives outpaced his limited options on Tactical, since I had most of my army left to counterpunch if he came too far forward.

Wings: Thanks Innes – definitely highlights one of the things that may hold Bully Boyz back from true dominance, which is that if you have the tools to pin them for even a single turn it massively impacts their overall plan.

Result

Innes Wilson – Chaos Space Marines (Slaves to Darkness) – 1st Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Brawler CSM

Thoughts

A classic Innes build here, combining cheap melee threat projection from Warp Talons and Rhino-riding Legionaries with a firebase that throws out way more pain than it really should for the price. Doubling up on Critical boosts with a Helbrute is incredible with Nurgle-marked stuff and Abaddon re-rolls, and will make a fairly severe mess of whatever it’s pointed at. One Lord squad in each of the two Legionary units also ensures that threats can be tailored to targets, increasingly important with Orks on the rise. Also, who doesn’t love re-rolling chainswords and warp claws into horde infantry? Well done to Innes on taking down the event.

The Best of the Rest

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

2nd – Christopher Irvine – Blood Angels (Sons of Sanguinius): A full squad each of foot and flying Death Company, plus a big VanVet unit and support firepower.
3rd – Larry Martin – Orks (Bully Boyz): Ghazghkull, Meganobz galore, plus supporting Boyz and Nobz in Trukks (with Warbosses in every unit for maximum Waaagh).
4th – Ryan Jervis – Thousand Sons (Cult of Magic): Lots of Characters, four Rubricae units and a big brick of Tzaangors with the Shaman and Crystal.
5th – Aidhan Higgins – Orks (Green Tide): 110 Boyz with buff Characters, Ghaz and a Meganob unit, and some support tools.
6th – Bruce Duffy – Adepta Sororitas: Lots of Arco-flagellants, lots of go-wide scoring pieces.
7th – Dean Lees – Blood Angels (Sons of Sanguinius): A full squad each of foot and flying Death Company, plus a Redeemer this time!

Loaded Dice Games May the 4th Open

32-player, 6-round Grand Tournament in Stevenson Ranch, CA, US on May 03 2024. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Take and Hold – Chilling Rain – Search and Destroy

Tyler Russo – Orks (Bully Boyz)
Army List - Click to Expand

vs.

Jeff Jew – Orks (Bully Boyz)
Army List - Click to Expand

Thoughts

You would think that in the world of Detachments it would be harder for the ~~treacherous~~ beloved patrons to serve me up a pure mirror match, but new codex hotness was always going to put that at risk and here we are – two Bully Boyz builds facing off on the top table. Happily there are some differences between them – Tyler’s build goes for a heavier Transport theme, providing protection against earlier shooting and some strong mobility, while Jeff concentrates more of his value in each units, taking far more Characters and a big Boyz squad as an additional centrepiece.

Both bring some advantages to the table. Lists that only do their damage in melee tend to struggle a bit with Transports, as it’s rare to be able to pop one and kill the contents in a single turn, leaving you open to a counterattack. 10th’s rules about being able to fight something you pile into after charging can sometimes mitigate that with clever positioning, but it’s usually tricky with larger vehicles like Battlewagons, and those definitely help Tyler here, particularly as an ‘Ard Case Battlewagon legitimately threatens to bounce anything less than overwhelming force here, which would be an instant disaster.

On the flip side, going lighter on Characters and using smaller Nobz units leaves Tyler with a few more things that risk just bouncing from the opponent, making it harder to line up all the effective trades you want. The presence of the Boyz unit compounds that – one of the weaknesses of Meganobz is that they don’t have that many attacks, and in a Waaagh on Waaagh situation, they probably drop enough wounds to not clear the Boyz unit in one swing, which has the potential to be disastrous for objective control. You really want the full Nobz unit to lift the Boyz block here, and without that it feels like there’s a serious risk of them gumming up the table enough to tilt scoring towards Jeff.

Realistically, I think the pivot point here is going to be whether one of Jeff’s units bounces off a Battlewagon on a key turn or not. If they do (and it’s at least a possibility), I think Tyler can plausibly use that momentum to build up enough value advantage to win. If that doesn’t happen (and Jeff’s Meganobz being all killsaws definitely reduces the risk of them failing), I’d expect clever use of the Boyz to be able to grind the game out – there are just slightly too many units in Tyler’s list that can’t effectively interact with them, which is a problem with the amount of OC they put down. Could go either way, but I’d lean towards Jeff on that basis, and it looks like he took the win.

Result

Orks (Jeff) Victory – 84 – 78

Jeff Jew – Orks (Waaagh! Tribe) – 1st Place

The List

See showdown

Archetype

XL Bullies

Thoughts

A first win for the Ork book right out the gate here, with Bully Boyz being the build that the highest proportion of players seem to have gravitated to. Two turns of 4+ Feel No Pain Meganobz is the draw there, obviously, and three units is a staple in most variants of it I’ve seen, often with one using a Tellyporta as here. Combining the option of Rapid Ingress with two turns of speed and durability lets you put the opponent under enormous pressure, and can be too much of a stat check for some armies to pull themselves out from, though you do need to be a little cautious of things that can just tarpit the Meganobz, since as mentioned earlier their attack count isn’t massive.

For that reason, I really like having both a big Boyz unit and a full Nobz squad on deck to deal with any problem that demands volume murder, as it massively mitigates a way that opponents can push back into the build. Putting a Painboy/Warboss combo in the Boyz ensures they aren’t even really an Orkilles heel damage-wise – chewing through a 5+ Invulnerable and 5+ Feel No Pain takes time!

I’m sure there will be plenty of tinkering with this formula, but this is clearly a strong start – well done Jeff!

The Best of the Rest

There were 2 more players on 5-1 records. They were:

2nd – Forrest Phanton – Space Wolves (Stormlance Task Force): Full throttle awoooo here, maxing both ThunderCav and Wulfen.
3rd – Ava Regalado – Space Marines (Ironstorm Spearhead): Lots of the previously popular tanks with some newly cheap Vindicators added.

PCG Hosts Lightly Salted’s 40k Spring GT

29-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Sandy, UT, US on May 04 2024. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Chase Chappell – Grey Knights (Teleport Strike Force) – 1st Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

All-rounder Grey Knights

Thoughts

This appears to be a diabolical test being set to check if I actually read lists beyond the title, but I’m afraid you’ll have to do better than that to fool me.

Points increases on Librarians and Dreadknights have clearly forced a bit of (healthy) experimentation, and this build uses a nice mix of options. Draigo and his Brotherhood Terminators threaten an early game slam to keep the foe on their toes, an Exigence Librarian with Paladins provides ranged damage that dodges reprisals. Meanwhile, Crowe’s Purifiers look better than ever in an Ork-heavy metagame, and you still get a few Dreadknights to go along with that. Just in general, AP-1 volume weaponry appears to be in right now, so being a faction with army-wide 2+ saves and access to Truesilver Armour really helps the Infantry appeal, so hopefully more varied builds like this will continue to succeed, well done Chase.

The Best of the Rest

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

2nd – Cody Jiru – Drukhari (Skysplinter Assault): Another showing for Cody’s Tantalus variant on the Skysplinter formula (see last week for its first outing).
3rd – Evan Stump – Ultramarines (Ironstorm Spearhead): Calgar, two Redemptors and triple RepEx.
4th – Derek Holder – World Eaters (Berzerker Warband): Infantry and Eightbound galore.
5th – Lee Harris – Chaos Daemons: Rendmasters amping up Be’lakor, a Bloodthirster and some Bloodcrushers, with two Brigands joining in to add fire support.

Competitive Innovations in 10th: Cybork Bullying pt.1

The Richmond Open 40K Event Hosted By Away Games

Joshua Campbell – Necrons (Canoptek Court) – 1st Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

David Adelman – Chaos Daemons (Daemonic Incursion) – 2nd Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

Dustin Zeliff – T’au Empire (Kauyon) – 3rd Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

Steven Fitch – Blood Angels (Ironstorm Spearhead) – 4th Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

The Best of the Rest

Slagmark Fyn

Alexander Jessen – Thousand Sons – 1st Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

The Best of the Rest

Clan Wars Scottish Open 5

The Showdown

Take and Hold – Chilling Rain – Search and Destroy

Thoughts

Result

Innes Wilson – Chaos Space Marines (Slaves to Darkness) – 1st Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

The Best of the Rest

Loaded Dice Games May the 4th Open

The Showdown

Take and Hold – Chilling Rain – Search and Destroy

Thoughts

Result

Jeff Jew – Orks (Waaagh! Tribe) – 1st Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

The Best of the Rest

PCG Hosts Lightly Salted’s 40k Spring GT

Chase Chappell – Grey Knights (Teleport Strike Force) – 1st Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

The Best of the Rest

Wrap Up

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