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Competitive Innovations in 10th: Cybork Bullying pt.2

By James "One_Wing" Grover

It’s me (Wings) in charge again today, freeing me to be monstrously self-indulgent and write about a Showdown I was in. I won’t say that no one can stop me, because there are several people who probably could, but they won’t, so you’ll have to put up with it.

Today I’m covering:

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

If you’re looking for any of the following, go check out part 1:

  • 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

Open de Carcassonne

All the lists for this event can be found in MiniHeadQuarters.

This event was pre-Dataslate.

AltF4 – Grey Knights – 1st Place

Grey Knights Nemesis Dreadknights. Credit: Colin Ward

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Dreadknights and Terminators

Thoughts

Brotherhood Terminators are a really good deal, whether in an MSU or a full brick with Draigo, and they’d been creeping up in popularity prior to the Dataslate, as seen in action here. It gives you a nice bit of diversity in how you can attack foes, and helps on the heavy tables that are common in Europe. Given other top players like Dreadknights and Librarians have now gone up in cost, expect to see even more of them (especially as they make the Redeemer even better value). Well done AltF4 for taking the win.

Loukas – Astra Militarum – 2nd Place

Leman Russ Demolisher. Credit: Rockfish
Leman Russ Demolisher. Credit: Rockfish

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Pre-Dataslate Guard

Thoughts

This build has been discussed to death, and while I think it probably ended up as merely part of A-tier rather than actually S-tier, it’s fair to say we’re leaving a period where Guard outperformed pretty much everyone except 40K Fireside and Nassim’s predictions. Well done to Loukas for racking up a second place finish with it to close.

Anthanora – Blood Angels (Sons of Sanguinius) – 3rd Place

Blood Angels Assault Intercessor
Blood Angels Assault Intercessor. Credit: Jack Hunter

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Transport Sons

Thoughts

Lots of your common or garden Sons of Sanguinius flying nonsense here, but the build is set apart by the two Impulsors with an MSU of Assault Intercessors and a Captain each. The beauty of Sons, as was the case with Blood Angels in 8th and 9th, is that the detachment trait pushes their offence hard enough that even small units like this are suddenly terminal threats, and this is a really nice way to get some additional board control down. A layer of Transport wrapping around a counterpunch unit is going to be super good in an Ork-heavy metagame, and the cost of that package stayed the same while other stuff in the builds went up, so I think it’s got real potential for wider use. Well done Anthanora for trying out something clever and new!

Druchii – Adepta Sororitas – 4th Place

Credit: Evan “Felime” Siefring

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

All-rounder Sisters

Thoughts

Lots of the standard Sisters hits here, with a marginal skew towards hulls via the inclusion of multiple Exorcists. That’s another thing that’ll help out on heavy Euro tables, but there’s not much more to say beyond that – this is all stuff that’s known good. Well done to Druchii on rounding out the top four, though why you aren’t playing Drukhari with that name is beyond me.

The Best of the Rest

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

  • 5th – Kahr-Noss – Tyranids (Unending Swarm): The detachment isn’t actually listed here, but I’m taking an educated guess based upon the presence of 110 horde infantry of various stripes, supported by Exocrines and Maleceptors.
  • 6th – Paulo_LaSamba – Blood Angels (Sons of Sanguinius): 10 of each Death Company flavour, a big Jump Intercessor unit and a Redeemer.
  • =7th – Pinpin – Imperial Knights: Canis, lots of Armigers and some Voidsmen with an Inquisitor.
  • =7th – Asthenia – Aeldari: Go-wide Aspects, plenty of indirect, and a big Troupe in a Wave Serpent to threaten objective flips.
  • 9th – Cédric – Chaos Space Marines: Abaddon and a shooty core of Vindicators and an Obliterator unit, then Raptors and Legionaries to go wide.
  • 10th – Skully – Necrons (Hypercrypt Legion): Double C’tan and some Immortals, then leaning in to the power of the Monolith a bit with a full Skorpekh brick to send through the portal.

The Saffron Walden GT

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

This event was pre-Dataslate.

Luke Townsend – Chaos Daemons (Daemonic Incursion) – 1st Place

Credit: Robert “TheChirurgeon” Jones

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Bloodcrusher Spam

Thoughts

All evidence suggests that Bloodcrushers are going to be serious players in the metagame that’s to come, given they were leading the charge on wins like this beforehand and didn’t catch any nerfs. They can roll over any C’tan that are still kicking around (impact Mortals and volume S6 Lance D1+1 attacks are the perfect foil to those), and are newly relevant for carving through Ork hordes. Add in their previous predator, the Adeptus Custodes, getting a real kicking and everything’s coming up Bloodcrusher. Well done to Luke on the win, and hopefully we’ll see plenty more from his Daemonic hordes as the new metagame evolves.

The Best of the Rest

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

  • 2nd – Jack Tite – Adepta Sororitas (Hallowed Martyrs): Triple Arcos and triple Castigator with the triumph, and doing the powerful flex of choosing to run an army legal under the new points (quite a bit under using the old).
  • 3rd – Harley Scully – Aeldari (Battle Host): Go-wide Aspects and indirect with one big Troupe.
  • 4th – Leigh Churchward – Chaos Space Marines (Slaves to Darkness): Abaddon Predator gunline with double Accursed Commune to protect it, and Warp Talons to cause mischief.
  • 5th – Jamie East – Leagues of Votann: Sagitaur spam with three units of Beserks.
  • 6th – Christopher Axe – Chaos Space Marines: A big unit each of Raptors and Legionaries (with Haarken and Lucius respectively) backed by a tonne of gun platforms.

AZ Warhammer 40K League 2024 Spring Championship

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

This event was pre-Dataslate.

Timothy Borowiec – Necrons (Canoptek Court) – 1st Place

Canoptek Wraiths. Credit: Rockfish
Canoptek Wraiths. Credit: Rockfish

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Pre-nerf Court

Thoughts

I fear there is little to say here – we all know that this build was one of the very best pre-Dataslate lists, and needs considerable re-tooling afterwards. The only thing I’ll highlight is that taking lots of Scarabs might see a bit more use, as they’re genuinely not bad in Court, and still very cheap. Otherwise, congratulations to Timothy.

The Best of the Rest

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

  • 2nd – Daniel Olivas – Drukhari (Skysplinter Assault): Extra transport-tastic Skysplinter, adding a third Raider and fifth Venom to the standard 2/4 setup, compensating by cutting out Scourges.
  • 3rd – Justin Winfrey – Chaos Space Marines (Slaves to Darkness): Abaddon with double Accursed Commune and gunline tools, plus one full Khorne Chosen squad.

Winchester 40K GT – May 2024

All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

This event was super well run with custom terrain sets that I liked, and you should come to their next one – I’ll certainly be back. Their website is here.

The Showdown

Vital Ground – Targets of Opportunity – Dawn of War

Me, Wings – Necrons (Awakened Dynasty)

Army List - Click to Expand

vs.

My nemesis, Sam Nash – Thousand Sons

Army List - Click to Expand

Thoughts

Oh I see how it is. Two weeks ago Sam beat me in round 5 of the Oxford GT playing for a top four spot, and I swore I’d get him next time. I have to admit, I thought I’d have more time for a training montage.

This matchup…does not thrill me. I was trying out something new, mostly because I wanted to put my Skorpekh on the table, and the good news is that this Awakened build had been performing well up to this point. The Skorpekh are a neat little package with how durable an Enhanced lord is, and the Warrior brick had overperformed my expectations considerably. My main complaint was not having enough throwaway scoring units, but that doesn’t super matter in this game, as with Targets of Opportunity I’m definitely going Tactical anyway.

More the issue here is that the Warrior brick is a huge liability against Thousand Sons, as they can use Twist of Fate to just evaporate the unit. The Immortals have a slightly better time of it simply because they threaten to do much the same back to multiple units of Rubricae if they get the first strike, forcing a bit of caution. That doesn’t stop this being tough though, but I did have a plan.

The nature of the map meant that both the mid-field objectives would be pretty vulnerable to stuff coming out of Strategic Reserves, so I put the Void Dragon into that to ensure I had a high pressure play that could be unleashed on whichever side it was needed. From there, the goal is to just try and stop him scoring Primary as much as possible, while picking up Secondaries and hoping that I can collapse one flank enough to eke out some late game Primary.

This gets a lot easier if I go second, which I did not, but the opening was OK I sent Wraiths onto one objective (on the side he was more heavily concentrated on) and left the other clear, with the Warriors and Szeras ready to make a play for it turn two. I’d also deployed my Flayed Ones very aggressively to box him in, and charged them into some cultists turn 1, aiming for Engage and BEL. Unfortunately they failed to kill the Cultists, so I only got the Engage, but it still tangled up his early movement considerably.

I turned out to have left a gap behind them and the Skorpekh that the Umbralefic unit could just warp into, but this was actually fine – they smoked the non-Lord Skorpekh, but were guaranteed to rolled up in response, and crucially meant he now couldn’t get an additional unit across to the far side of the table if the Warriors pushed, giving them the best possible chance of tanking a turn. The Wraiths also narrowly survived the fusilade of firepower unleashed on them, though sadly were depleted enough that Overwatch sealed the deal the following turn.

Still, this gave me a narrow route into the game, but unfortunately it fell through pretty quickly. The Void Dragon came in on his heavy side, made it into combat with a re-roll and did some OK shooting damage, but whiffed in combat and didn’t kill enough Rubricae to flip the objective (before dying messily). Meanwhile, Magnus used Indirect alongside a smaller number of Rubricae on the other flank to still roll up the Warriors in a single turn, and that was kind of game – I teleported the Destroyers over to obliterate Ahriman to make me feel better, but it was extremely over, and the game closed out a few turns later with my last model being Szeras encircled by a squad of Cultists, who he shamefully only managed to kill two of.

I’ll get you next next time, I guess.

In all seriousness, this was a useful exercise, because it showed that I 100% need some specific anti-Thousand Sons tech if I want to run this build that was otherwise very good. They’re going to be a major part of the metagame, so the matchup being this much of a nightmare is a problem. My current plan is to cut the Destroyers for a smaller shooting threat, a Canoptek Spyder for the Gloom Prism and change. That lets me move the Veil of Darkness over to the Warriors, giving them a chance to actually do something meaningful in this game before they die horribly. That’s the theory anyway, tune back in next month to see how it goes when I roll it out again.

Result

++ Overwhelming (82-40) Thousand Sons Victory ++ 

++ Humiliation for loser Wings ++

Sam Nash – Thousand Sons – 1st Place

Credit: Robert “TheChirurgeon” Jones

The List

See Showdown

Archetype

Rubricae Tsons

Thoughts

It’s post-Dataslate Tsons! It looks quite a lot like pre-Dataslate Tsons, only going harder on Cultists as space fillers since they’re now super cheap. Otherwise, it’s your usual recipe of tricks galore and incredible damage concentration when it really matters. Congratulations to Sam!

The Best of the Rest

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

  • 2nd – James “One_Wing” Grover – Necrons (Awakened Dynasty): See showdown.
  • 3rd – Joshua Cowlard – Orks (Bully Boyz): Many Meganobz, one Nobz unit and two squads of Boyz in five Trukks and a Tellyporta, with Warbikers to carry out early skirmishing.

Wrap Up

I love putting myself in the newspaper, it’s big and clever. Now I don’t have another event for a month, and I weep. Lots of exciting Warhammer coming up though, so see you next week as we delve into more of it.

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