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[40k] Competitive Innovations in 10th: Excessive Krumpin’ pt.1

By James "One_Wing" Grover

Welcome to Competitive Innovations, our weekly feature for a number of game lines across the tabletop wargame space. Each week our army list and tactics experts canvass the top tournaments for their game of specialty, looking at the week’s top match-ups and how they played out on the tabletop to let you know what’s hot, what’s not, and what might be coming next as the competitive meta evolves year-round.

Big Warhammer is now thoroughly back in session, with a massive weekend just past and the LVO coming up in a few days time. Players have also had a chance to get to grips with their new Grotmas treats, and some big hitters have started making a move. This week, we’ve got especially prominent performances from the Slaaneshi Legion of Excess and the Ork Taktikal Brigade, but there are plenty more making an impact, and alongside them we’ve got new builds of classic detachments (particularly from Imperial Knights), and a frankly alarming number of Ultramarines. The metagame is wide open going into LVO, and it continues to be a thrilling period to report on.

Let’s do some of that then – today, we’re starting with:

  • The Nottingham 40k Super-Major
  • Winter War Grand Tournament
  • Red Dragon GT – January 40k
  • GT QUALIFIER MODENA – GT Italiano 2025
  • We Have LVO at Home GT
  • Grand Clash – Warhammer 40k Tournament – 2 Day GT

On Friday, Lowest of Men will be covering:

  • Denver 40K Fight Club January Open 2025
  • Guild War I
  • The Brawl GT – Beachhead Warm Up!
  • North Sea Slam IRONMAN 2025
  • Warpstorm

…and we do in fact have our first triple threat of the year (already!) so on Saturday I’ll be back with:

  • Exterminatus X Big Ben 10
  • A Grimdark New Years, SGA Finals
  • NYKO 2025
  • Hawaii “War on the Shore” Charity GT 2025
  • Fight for the Fallen GT

Our patrons are just as excited about all the new detachments as I am, and this week have selected the following Showdowns:

  • Legion Of Excess vs Sort-of-Blood Angels Liberator Assault Group at the Nottingham Super-Major
  • Green Tide vs. Reaper’s Wager at Denver Fight Club
  • Creations of Bile vs. Starshatter Arsenal at Fight for the Fallen

The NOTTINGHAM 40K SUPER-MAJOR

375-player, 7-round Supermajor in England, United Kingdom on January 11 2025. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Scorched Earth – Inspired Leadership – Crucible of Battle

Will Whitaker – Chaos Daemons (Legion of Excess)
Army List - Click to Expand

vs.

Innes Wilson – Blood Angels (Liberator Assault Group)
Army List - Click to Expand

Thoughts

A spectacular melee throwdown on the top table of this week’s supermajor, with new and improved Slaanesh Daemons facing new and (surprisingly) improved Oaths from Blood Angels. The latter is (helpfully) explained in Innes’ army list – losing super Oaths is tied to taking a unit with the Blood Angels keyword, so you can take Liberator Assault Force with no special units, and still get the +1 to Wound. This obviously works very nicely with Liberator’s Charge boost, allowing even the smallest of units to do spectacular damage in the right situation (and you can use Red Rampage when you need to hit hard in multiple places). Innes’ list uses a tonne of small squads that can cover ground quickly, relying on the fact that nothing is safe to be near to in order to quickly and enduringly dominate the table.

Slaanesh, obviously, is not the safest army to try and do that against. The units on Will’s side of the table can slice through Space Marines at speed, mostly not even needing to use the Seductive Gambit. Just in general, the Marines need to be far more careful about picking their battles here, as the Slaanesh stuff will probably be able to overpower them in a straight fight, despite the Blood Angels boosts. They do have the advantage of a bit of ranged firepower to try and shape the flow of battle to their advantage – Vindicators are great here, and there’s enough small units to screen them from sudden charge, and the Desolation Marine unit is certainly valuable for clearing out the Fight First Daemonettes early on. The UKTC round 7 map exacerbates this, as it’s one of the ones with basically no safe mid-field objectives, so the Daemons lack of firepower bites especially hard.

The flip side of that, of course, is that this map also provides fantastic staging for big monsters mid-board, which is going to allow Slaanesh to force a throw-down fight at some point. When that happens, advantage shifts to them substantially – go-wide armies like the Marines here rely on being able to carefully plan out their kills and allocation of resources, and there are multiple things in the Slaanesh list that can throw that off. Will’s version isn’t built hard for Thieves of Pain like one we’ll look at later, but it’s still there as a threat to suddenly shuffle a bunch of damage around, and the Fight on Death from the Tormentbringer is also ultra good in this game, as it can easily result in a whole Marine unit being taken with whatever they’re picking up. Finally, Syll’Esske is hugely valuable as something that can step out onto an open mid-field objective early and tank some shooting or as just a sticky brawler providing a further way to stifle the Marine momentum.

I think this ultimately comes down to how much damage the Marines can nail in shooting on the big pre-confrontation turn. I don’t think Slaanesh can avoid them getting a decent shooting window, but if that volley doesn’t do enough damage then I think Slaanesh can sweep things from there. Both players here are extremely good, and will almost certainly have figured out these dynamics, and I honestly think either could take it down. In the event, Slaanesh came out on top, and you’ve got to think it’s an army to watch for LVO as it should be very strong on GW terrain as well.

Result

Chaos Daemons (Legion of Excess) Victory – 75 – 61

Will Whitaker – Chaos Daemons (Legion of Excess) – 1st Place

Credit: Liebot – https://instagram.com/liebot_pics

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Pure Murder Legion

Thoughts

The hype is real, and Will earn’s Legion of Excess the first of three trophies it took this week. As covered above, his version doesn’t build hard around the tricks of the detachment, instead just ensuring he’s got ample supplies of fast, deadly killers to unleash, and having the Stratagems in a back pocket to flip the momentum or direction of the game at a key moment. Melee stocks seem to be rising again, so the Tormentbringer seems like an especially strong touch, and Syll’Esske continues to be a phenomenal datasheet, perhaps better here than ever before. Well done to Will on the huge win!

Innes Wilson – Blood Angels (Liberator Assault Group) – 2nd Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Blood Angels-Style Product

Thoughts

I mean fair’s fair, using the list title to store a load-bearing FAQ is a novel and valid use of it. Otherwise, all covered in the Showdown, and hey, it’s a go-wide melee army where every unit can punch up if needed, we all know full well what Innes can do with those. Great work as always!

Josh Roberts – Ultramarines (Gladius Task Force) – 3rd Place

Old School Guilliman
Old School Guilliman. Credit: SRM

The List

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Archetype

Bobby G Gun Club

Thoughts

Josh takes third place, fielding a build that’s very similar to some of the Ironstorm setups we looked at last week, only it’s Gladius. I’m struggling to think of a time where we’ve had builds that are so close to one another in two different detachments, and that mostly says a lot about the raw power of the Bobby/Marneus/3xVindicator/3xBallistus. It’s one of the premium shooty stat check builds in the game right now, and I’m guessing the thinking behind running as Gladius rather than Ironstorm (especially on UKTC boards) is that you don’t need the extra killing power from the latter, whereas being able to Advance/Shoot or do an Advance/Charge push with the Characters could be game-changing. Well done to Josh on another podium finish.

Nassim Fouchane – Astra Militarum (Bridgehead Strike) – 4th Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Bridgehead

Thoughts

Much like Innes and MSU combat Marines, you know Nas is going to be packing the new guard hotness, and sure enough he’s got Bridgehead Strike locked and loaded here, going for the version with a bit more on-table threat from Tank Commanders and staging hulls. That does, again, make sense on UKTC boards – they tend to favour firing lines down the side for long-ranged stuff rather than close-range in the middle, so Bridgehead on pure Deep Strike would be too easy to screen out. Tank Commanders and a few Taurox neatly close that gap – TCs with access to pocket Advance/Shoot are exactly the kind of ranged threat that does well on UKTC, providing Nas with a way to initiate violence when required. Three Mortar squads helps with that too, ensuring that any Infantry list playing too much of a passive game is going to get chipped away. I think the Tank Commander variant is very likely to be the correct choice on Bridgehead going forward, so if you want to do well with guard go ahead and copy Nas (usually a safe bet). Well done on a top four placing!

The Best of the Rest

There were 8 more players on 5-0 records. They were:

  • 5th – Brian Seipp – Orks (Taktikal Brigade): See writing about UK events is easy because I know all the lore, and I can tell you that Taktikal Brigade has to be awesome if it’s lured Brian off of War Horde after so long. Here he’s unleashing a very shooty build, taking advantage of Shokk Attack Gun Big Meks being able to lead new Tankbustas, plus one Mega-armoured Mek Kaptin with a full Flash Gitz unit to unleash an absolute torrent of firepower. When things get close and personal, Breaka Boyz with Warbosses heft their hammers and get stuff done, packing an astounding amount of violence into a small unit. Well done Brian!
  • 6th – Alex Ginns – Leagues of Votann (Oathband): Votann with a bit of everything, adding a full Thunderkyn unit with an Iron-master to the standard mix of toys.
  • 7th – Tom Lowman – Genestealer Cult (Biosanctic Broodsurge): My esteemed co-author puts me to shame once more by nailing a 5-0 finish with his beloved Genestealer Cult (fun fact – he got this gig by smashing me with GSC and being very nice about it), sticking to the plan of hammering foes with early pressure from Purestrains and Aberrants, taking advantage of the new version of Cult Ambush to dial down the amount of scoring chaff to maintain the investment in the spicy stuff. Great work!
  • 8th – Ratnu Vaidya – Chaos Knights (Traitoris Lance): Dogs.
  • 9th – Matt Bell – Necrons (Starshatter Arsenal): Silent King, triple Doomsdays, enmitic Lokhust Heavies for anti-horde.
  • 10th – David Gaylard – Astra Militarum (Bridgehead Strike): Bridgehead with big Krieg units to gum up the table early on, and a single Tank Commander for a shooty counterpunch. Also packs a Field Ordnance Battery to add indirect, which having listened to David’s (very good) podcast, I can relay is there because D2 gives you a shot of depleting Space Marine Infiltrators, who are otherwise a nightmare for this list.
  • 11th – Nathan Roberts – Death Guard (Plague Company): Mortarion and hulls galore.
  • 12th – Toby Bennett – Dark Angels (Stormlance Task Force): Advance/Charge Deathwing Knights supported by a full Outrider/Command Squad brick to squeeze maximum value from MOUNTED tricks and unleash a devastating alpha strike.

Winter War Grand Tournament

48-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Buffalo, NY, United States on January 11 2025. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Christian Kosanovich – Imperial Knights (Noble Lance) – 1st Place

Converted Knight Warden
Knight Errant Striiguth, piloted by piloted by Jafnather Yarl Rúna Vestrfjall of House Ulfir. Credit: Tom Saunders

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Triple Bigs

Thoughts

Huh, apparently it’s big boy season. Imperial Knights made out really well in the Dataslate by picking up 10pts discounts on both Armiger flavours, which appears to have unleashed several new options. The first one is on show here – you can get three good big Knights and five Armigers on the table again, and there’s a sufficiently large number of enemy hulls out there right now that Canis and the Errant are in a target-rich environment. Enemies teching to clear out five or six mid-sized hulls are going to find themselves overwhelmed by this, especially as the Errants also the ability for the Warglaives to line up Melta-range shots with Advance/Shoot. Nice to see some of the “normal” big Knights getting a look in for a change, well done to Christian for flying the banner here!

The Best of the Rest

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

  • 2nd – Trevor DeVantier – Necrons (Starshatter Arsenal): Silent King, triple Doomsday, lots of Skorpekh and Ophydian MSUs (both of which do really well out of +1 to hit and optional +1 to Wound when pushing to flip an objective).
  • 3rd – Tom Bojanowski – Space Wolves (Stormlance Task Force): We shall never escape from Wolf Jail (here with Gladiator Lancer backup).
  • 4th – James Crandall – Chaos Knights (Traitoris Lance): Big Knight fever reaches the eye of terror also, with a Desecrator and battle cannon/thermal Despoiler taking the field in charge of dogs, here the newly discounted Executioners and Huntsmen instead of classic Brigands. Once again, it seems like getting to put one more small Knight in alongside bigs and utility stuff (here a Beast of Nurgle and some Nurglings) really helps builds get over the line.
  • 5th – Eric Head – Death Guard (Plague Company): Mortarion, various hulls, and a good amount of nasty Infantry, both a full Plague Marine unit in a Rhino and a full Blightlord brick.
  • 6th – Dalton Jarka – Grey Knights (Warpbane Task Force): A balance of Dreadknights and a mix of Strike and Purifier MSUs, plus one big Purifier brick with Crowe.
  • 7th – Jonathan Baco – Death Guard (Plague Company): Character spam with a few durable bricks (two Deathshroud units and Typhus/Poxwalkers). Also has a Rhino that appears to be purely for two Plaguecasters to do drive-bys in, which is hilarious.

Red Dragon GT – January 40k

40-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Ottawa, ON, CA on January 11 2025. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Alice Braithwaite – Chaos Daemons (Legion of Excess) – 1st Place

Slaanesh, Daemon
Credit: Charlie A

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Pain Battery Slaanesh

Thoughts

A second win for Slaanesh here, with Alice’s build leaning even harder into the detachment’s new tricks. Taking both False Majesty and the Dreaming Crown allows Keepers to stand (slightly) back while big Fiend units absolutely eviscerate anything they touch, and including an Epitome/Daemonette wound battery for Thieves of Pain lets them run amok for an extended period. A Soul Grinder can also take excellent advantage of this, while also providing a third big hammer to go with the two Keepers in games where the opponent just needs to be bodied on multiple fronts. This feels like a super strong balance between raw unit power and squeezing excessive value out of a powerful detachment, huge congratulations to Alice on taking a trophy with it.

The Best of the Rest

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

  • 2nd (4.5-0.5) – Ridvan Martinez – Drukhari (Skysplinter Assault): Heavier-duty Skysplinter, going surprisingly light on Transports to fit in a Talos unit and a Voidraven, and eschewing Incubi in favour of the cheap-ish Mortal Wound bomb from a full Wrack unit in a Raider.
  • 3rd – Phil Ivanusic – Necrons (Starshatter Arsenal): Silent King-free Starshatter, though keeping triple Doomsdays and supporting them with a Wraith tarpit and lots of Destroyers of various shapes and sizes.
  • 4th – Zach Comeau – Astra Militarum (Bridgehead Strike): Triple Tank Commander Bridgehead with Earthshaker Carriages for indirect, and a surprisingly small (though lethal on the go turns) Scion contingent.
  • 5th – Jonathon Betteridge – Ultramarines (Vanguard Spearhead): Deep Strike/redeploying Vanguard with a nasty Infiltrating Eradicator brick, plus an on-trend unit of Desolation Marines for Indirect.
  • 6th – Thomas Cosgrove – Adeptus Custodes (Solar Spearhead): Dreadnoughts galore and some Caladius tanks.
  • 7th – Steph Job – Chaos Daemons (Legion of Excess): Heavier Legion, adding Be’lakor and a second Soul Grinder instead of Fiends, plus a few chariots to control the board (and as additional users of Thieves of Pain).

GT QUALIFIER MODENA – GT Italiano 2025

38-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Modena, Emilia-Romagna, Italia on January 11 2025. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Giorgio castelli – Necrons (Starshatter Arsenal) – 1st Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

SK Starshatter

Thoughts

Notch up another one for Starshatter here, going for Silent King/triple Doomsdays as the damage core, and a Wraith unit and some Canoptek Spyders (who are indeed pretty great here, I expect to see at least one in more lists) in flex slots. I do like the cute choice to use a Skorpekh Lord as a bearer for the Chrono-Impedance fields, as he provides a nasty counter-charge with Mortals and big swings if the enemy gets too close (especially if he’s in the Dread Majesty aura).

The Best of the Rest

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

  • 2nd – Marco Santopadre – Chaos Daemons (Blood Legion): Double big Bloodcrusher brick plus double Rendmaster, with a nasty Bloodthirster as an additional threat, and some Infantry/utility pieces to support and score while the enemy is under pressure.
  • 3rd – Edoardo Pierini – Imperial Knights (Noble Lance): A teleporting Atrapos and many, many Armigers.
  • 4th – Federico Faralli – Astra Militarum (Combined Regiment): Ultra hull-heavy Guard with Dorns, triple Tank Commander and some bonus Russes.
  • 5th – Marco Brandonisio – Ultramarines (Ironstorm Spearhead): Bobby G gun club.
  • 6th – Riccardo Ghio – Grey Knights (Warpbane Task Force): A couple of Dreadknights, Purifier MSUs and a supporting Agents contingent with an Immolator, some Sisters and Draxus.

We Have LVO at Home GT

31-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Roseville, Minnesota, US on January 11 2025. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Miles Engrav – Ultramarines (Ironstorm Spearhead) – 1st Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Bobby G Gun Club

Thoughts

Don’t sell yourself short Miles – you’re the first Bobby G list I’ve read this week with the Judiciar/Bladeguard unit, so there’s some difference here from the norm. They help dissuade mid-durability melee threats from trying to overwhelm the hulls, and can also unleash a nasty surprise on foes who accidentally set up Unbowed Conviction while relying on damage reduction. There’s also a Gladiator Reaper, which feels well timed as Orks and Bridgehead Guard rise up. See Miles, plenty of originality! Also the big guns that reduce enemy armies to a soup-like homogenate in under five Battle Rounds. Those too.

The Best of the Rest

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

  • 2nd – Nicholas Bialek – Adeptus Custodes (Talons of the Emperor): While Solar Spearhead is making a splash, Talons/Shield Host but with bikes now are also performing for the Custodes. Here, 3×2 Praetors join a couple of Warden blocks to provide a very mobile and hard to pin-down brawler build.
  • 3rd – Jeremiah Petit – Adeptus Custodes (Talons of the Emperor): Similar, but slightly fewer Infantry for even more bikes, pushing two of the units up to three models.
  • 4th – Ben Cherwien – Grey Knights (Warpbane Task Force): Four Dreadknights and lots of Purifiers (10/10/5). Uncomplicated, but demonstrably effective.
  • 5th – Michael Nicchetta – Dark Angels (Ironstorm Spearhead): Primarch Ironstorm, but with the Lion this time, and a nasty Azrael/ICC squad for additional melee punch. Oh, also Canis Rex for additional melee PUNCH.

Grand Clash – Warhammer 40k Tournament – 2 Day GT

28-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Courtice, ON, Canada on January 11 2025. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Dan Bruce – Space Wolves (Champions of Russ) – 1st Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Herohammer Champions

Thoughts

A fancy Space Wolf curveball to close us out here, or possibly that should be deathball, as the centrepiece here is a huge brick of Terminators (supported by a second alpha unit in the full ThunderCav squad). Being able to take storm shields across the unit, plus having a Chaplain for Mortal resistance, makes this squad a true nightmare to crack, they’ll punch out almost anything, and Death Howl helps them roll through the enemy causing absolute chaos. Elsewhere, you get some nice Wolf bonuses like the Ragnar/Assault Intercessor blender and Bjorn, and the list is rounded out with some Reivers and a cheap Lieutenant for harrassment and scoring. Reivers in two top lists in one day. Truly we live in an age of marvels. Great stuff from Dan.

The Best of the Rest

There were 2 more players on 4-1 records. They were:

  • 2nd – Ultramarines (Vanguard Spearhead): Teleport Centurions and pals.
  • 3rd – Zac Snowden – Grey Knights (Warpbane Task Force): Three GMDKs, a big Brotherhood Terminator unit, and Purifiers.

Wrap Up

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