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Competitive Innovations in 10th: Liminal Space Marines pt.1

By James "One_Wing" Grover

We really are in the final stages of the old metagame now – we know a Balance Dataslate is dropping this week, the Pariah missions release on the weekend, and the Sisters and GSC Codexes will start kicking in alongside them. Given that, and because we’ve been very busy, we’re going a little light this week (and probably next week) with no Showdowns.

We will, of course, still be ensuring that everyone who hit a top finish gets their moment in the spotlight, especially as people still seem to be throwing out hot new tech every week – we’ve got a bunch of unusual builds to cover. Let’s take a look at what we’ve got lined up.

Today I (Wings) will be covering:

  • THE BRISTOL 40K SUPER MAJOR
  • 1. A1 eSports Super Major 24
  • YHP- “Road to the NOVA Open” 40K GT
  • The Epic Summer Splash Charity GT
  • Chuchichästli Rumble 1.0
  • Critical Fail 40k Major

On Friday we’ll have Lowest of Men picking up:

  • Frontline Gaming ACO 2024 Warhammer 40K Champs
  • Risky Rollers – Calling the Banners 40k GT
  • GT Sevilla Individual – Híspalis Imperium
  • ForgeFire Open 2
  • Black Tower Summer Edition – Warmaster GT
  • TORNEO CLASIFICATORIO ARTHOBBIES

THE BRISTOL 40K SUPER MAJOR

265-player, 7-round Supermajor in Stoke Gifford, England, United Kingdom on June 15 2024. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Jonathan Summerfield – Chaos Space Marines (Renegade Raiders) – 1st Place

Credit: Robert “TheChirurgeon” Jones

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Combined Arms Raiders

Thoughts

This is a nice easy one for me to start with, as I had the pleasure of playing against Jonathan in round four of the event. This build leans towards the shootier end of Renegade Raiders, using the great synergy between the Detachment Rule and Predator Destructors to push damage early, then hitting the opponent with waves of additional pressure out of Rhinos or Rapid Ingress. Fabius Bile has been showing up in lots of Raiders builds as he benefits a lot from boosted AP and also makes your second wave harder to shift, which can be terminal for a foe already on the ropes.

The particularly nice bit of tech that Jonathan has beyond that is the double Havoc Rhino. In our game he held this in Strategic Reserves, and it’s a nice way to gradually ration out more killing power while the opponent is bogged down in the mid-board. It works particularly well for Raiders because the disembarking Havocs are eligible for Ruinous Raid, and it’s generally much harder for the opponent to play around all possible angles of that from Reserves than it is from a Transport on the board.

Jonathan played his list extremely well in our game, using its ability to keep the foe under constant pressure to maximum effect, and it’s fantastic to see him go on to take the whole thing – congratulations!

Mark Crombleholme – Necrons (Hypercrypt Legion) – 2nd Place

The Deceiver. Credit: Wings

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Shooty Destroyer Hypercrypt

Thoughts

In second place we’ve got Mark’s very unique Necrons build, iterating on some tools he’s been tinkering with all edition. The list uses big squads of Flayed Ones in combination with the Deceiver to great effect – you can screen out a huge amount of Infiltration space for the enemy then pull them into Reserves if you need, and on UKTC boards there’s generally also some great places to hide them to project threat. That (plus the counter-charge threat from the Skorpekh) helps them run interference for the trulymonstrous number of Lokhusts mark is packing, who will be having a whale of a time teleporting around the table and blasting the foe to bits. Regular Lokhusts stack up pretty well into some popular metagame choices, and the configurability of where you put the Lords lets you adapt very effectively to whatever you run into. It’s completely different from what pretty much anyone else is playing, and I love seeing something so unique thrive, well done Mark!

Ed Watts – Black Templars (Righteous Crusaders) – 3rd Place

Chaplain Grimaldus. Credit: SRM

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Templar Horde

Thoughts

Tactical squads, as I live and breathe. This build is pretty up front about its plans, which are to roll the foe over with a gigantic horde. Two twenty-model blocks with access to a 5+ Feel No Pain is a pretty spectacular lift for most armies to handle, and works especially well in the current melee-heavy metagame. Bluntly, with Armour of Contempt on these just trump most of the things that are out there claiming to represent melee meta, and the sheer amount of space they can cover makes it very tricky for such armies to play around them. Hordes of Tactical Marines and scoring units provide plenty of redundancy (and perhaps a first wave) against armies with a better shot of handling the horde, and anything shooty also has to watch out for the game over prospect of getting trapped in combat via No Escape. Ed eventually fell to Jonathan’s Renegades, as AP-boosted Predators and Chosen are in fact what you want against this, but it was a phenomenal run up to that point, and another build that goes against the grain to round out the podium. Great work Ed!

Mark Davies – World Eaters (Berzerker Warband) – 4th Place

Credit: Robert “TheChirurgeon” Jones

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Boundless World Eaters

Thoughts

The unique builds don’t stop at third place, it would seem. No Eightbound! Helbrutes!

This list feels tuned to the UKTC terrain and the current metagame. The excellent staging available on UKTC makes the sheer speed of Eightbound less vital to succeeding with World Eaters, and in an environment with lots of big, durable melee bricks there’s a risk that smaller Eightbound squads could bounce and die, which is a waste of resources you definitely can’t spare. Consolidating forces into big Berzerker units ensures that doesn’t happen, and backfilling with Helbrutes and an ultra-tough Daemon Prince backfills the ability to rip a tank apart when needed. I particularly like the threat that the Helbrutes represent to melee units with a large footprint, because if you manage to charge one into one “end” of a large squad, and hit the other with something else, it can be catastrophic for the foe – the Helbrute functionally gets to Fight twice.

Finishing up, you’ve got lots of Chaos Spawn, and this feels like another UKTC quirk – small footprint units can be quite hard to prise out of corner objectives in the late game, and the option to just run a squad out onto one and then use Blood Offering to lock it in when they get smoked can force the enemy into fightin on more fronts than they want. Love seeing some tuning for the environment, and a well-deserved fourth place for Mark.

The Best of the Rest

There were 3 more players on 5-0 records after the Swiss, plus two more who drew on an undefeated table in the final round. They were:

  • 5th – Rob Broome – Orks (Bully Boyz): A rather unique Bully Boyz build that goes light on Meganobz in favour of lots of regular Nobz and Boyz in Trukks, and managing to squeeze in Ghaz and some supporting Flash Gitz as well. The end result trades out durability for much higher killing power, and with good staging on UKTC terrain that clearly paid off!
  • 6th – Martyn Cooper – Astra Militarum: A classic guard mix of board flood (using Catachans for speed) and guns, using Tank Commanders and Vanquishers to obliterate the foe, with Medusas in support.
  • 7th – Andrew Lewis – Genestealer Cult: One last ride for classic Index horde stuff with some Catachan scout support.
  • 8th – Kyle Grundy – T’au Empire (Kauyon): A return to something in line with what Kyle was using in the late Index era, going wide with Hammerheads and Riptides with Breacherfish to push.
  • 9th – Liam Keane – Thousand Sons: Mostly the standard Rubric and Character build, but with a twist of downgrading one squad to Tzaangors and upgrading another (also using points from a Rhino) to a five-model Scarab squad.

1. A1 eSports Super Major 24

57-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Wien, Wien, Österreich on June 15 2024. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Kevin „planB_God“ Zöllinger – Black Templars (Ironstorm Spearhead) – 1st Place

Black Templars Gladiator Lancer. Credit: SRM

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Dakka Ironstorm Templars

Thoughts

We now switch over towards a much more known quantity – Ironstorm good, Ironstorm with extra multi-meltas (including the double multi-melta Rhino) extra good. This build requires quite specific tools to counter effectively, and has a broad enough range of firepower that it can take on all comers, which it did here, well done Kevin.

The Best of the Rest

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

  • 2nd – Marek Vlnka – Tyranids (Invasion Fleet): Monster mash with all the most efficient beasties.
  • 3rd – Konrad Schmuck – Necrons (Canoptek Court): Double C’tan, double Doomstalker, triple Wraiths.
  • 4th – Richard Kopaj – Orks (Green Tide): Hefty Green Tide with five big units of Boyz and a Warcaller Meganobz squad, supported by one big Flash Gitz unit.
  • 5th – Peter Steiner – T’au Empire (Mont’ka): Breacherfish, Hammerheads and Riptides.
  • 6th – Fabian Huber – Thousand Sons: Rubricae/Character Tsons with one unit of Tzaangors for objective flipping.
  • 7th – Michael Ramminger – Chaos Knights: Dogs and Nurglings.
  • 8th – Stefan Pazderka – Grey Knights: Moderately heavy Grey Knights, going for four Dreadknights and two Paladin MSUs with Draigo and a Grand Master.

YHP- “Road to the NOVA Open” 40K GT

48-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Fredericksburg, VA, US on June 15 2024. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Edward Appel – Grey Knights (Teleport Strike Force) – 1st Place

Grey Knight Nemesis Dreadknights. Credit: Colin Ward

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Ultracrunch Grey Knights

Thoughts

That’s too many Redeemers. This is what I get for saying nice things about Land Raider spam. Well done Edward.

Jeffrey Kolodner – Adepta Sororitas (Index) – 2nd Place (Undefeated)

Sisters of Battle Simulacrum Imperialis Credit: Alfredo Ramirez
Sisters of Battle Simulacrum Imperialis Credit: Alfredo Ramirez

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Shooty Sisters

Thoughts

Obviously this is an Index list, but regular Sisters champion Jeffrey is clearly ready for the new Bringers of Flame detachment, as this army already leans in hard on Transports and melta. All those transports make it tricky for melee builds to roll through this as fast as they’d like, and that lets you bring the enormous counterpunch power of such a melta-heavy build (plus the Warsuits) to bear, obliterating the foe in short order. Fascinated to see how this list gets tweaked as the new book goes live, congratulations Jeffrey!

The Best of the Rest

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

  • 3rd – Larry Oliver – Tyranids (Crusher Stampede): The soul of a true warrior on show here, picking up one of the weakest detachments in Tyranids and rolling over people with a wall of bugs, with one of each Norn as the centrepieces.
  • 4th – Mark Hertel – Space Marines (Astartes) (Gladius Task Force):
  • 5th – Blue Ford – Orks (Bully Boyz): Heavily mechanised Bullies, throwing Nobz, Meganobz and Snaggas at the foe in a convoy of Trukks.
  • 6th – Walker Julliard – Thousand Sons: Exceptionally Character-heavy Tsons, even by their standards!
  • 7th – Jason Smith – Orks (Green Tide): Pure muscle Green Tide, cramming in the maximum 120 Boyz and garnishing with Warcaller Meganobz.
  • 8th – Herman Orgeron – Genestealer Cult: An unusual double Aberrant list. Perhaps a harbinger of things to come with the new Aberrant-focused detachment from the Codex?

The Epic Summer Splash Charity GT

43-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Grand Prairie, TX, United States on June 15 2024. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Colin Kay – Black Templars (Ironstorm Spearhead) – 1st Place

Black Templars Repulsor Executioner. Credit: SRM

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Quadrapex

Thoughts

Are we at the point of doing theatrical boos for this list yet? It feels like we could be, though it is still very funny.

We’ve covered it several times as Colin keeps smashing events with it, well done for racking up another!

The Best of the Rest

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

  • 2nd – Robert Moreland – Astra Militarum (Combined Regiment): Big Tank mentioned! A Stormsword protected by loads of Bullgryn, with Leman Russ Exterminators for blasting any mid-tier targets that the siege cannon would be wasted on.
  • 3rd – Jason Manning – Chaos Space Marines (Renegade Raiders): A toolbox Raiders build using two Rhinos that can be loaded up in a variety of ways, including Noise Marines and Warpflamer Rubricae, and then a few different options on setting up a hammer blow pressure unit, either Scouting them forward in a Rhino with a Mark of the Hound MoE, or ust buddying them with Abaddon as a massive murder engine.
  • 4th – Cam Hawkins – Chaos Space Marines (Renegade Raiders): A different spin on Raiders with loads of Legionaries in Rhinos as the core, a big unit of Warp Talons to cause headaches, and Vashtorr with some cheap Daemon Engines as extra pressure.
  • 5th – Tyler Rowe – Adepta Sororitas (Index): Engine spam rises from the mists of 9th Edition, with loads of Dominions in Immolators alongside them.
  • 6th – Peyton Beard – Grey Knights: Four Dreadknights and two full Brotherhood Terminator squads.
  • 7th – Antonio Soegaard – Grey Knights: Four Dreadknights, one full Brothrhood Terminator squad and Crowe’s Purifiers.
  • 8th – Zach Rueckl – World Eaters: Full send Eightbound and Maulerfiend extravaganza.

Chuchichästli Rumble 1.0

38-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Laufenburg, AG, Schweiz on June 15 2024. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Malte Höfs – Chaos Space Marines (Pactbound Zealots) – 1st Place

Chaos Lord. Credit: Rockfish
Chaos Lord. Credit: Rockfish

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Talon Pactbound

Thoughts

Lots of CSM classics continuing to thrive here, albeit with a lot more Warp Talons and Abaddon taking advantage of his ability to team up with Chosen. That pushes up the number of threats that can Advance/Charge and inflict big damage, and Abaddon still adds a tonne of value while he’s staged by pushing the threat potential of Nurgle Vindicators through the roof. Warp Talons are also exceptional in this metagame, as in addition to their new ability to return to the sky, we’re in one of those metagames where there are enough different targets that all-purpose blenders (which definitely includes high volume S5 AP-2 Twin-Linked) are at a premium, so making use of that is super valuable. Chaos seem to be having a pretty decent start, all things considered, great work from Malte adding to that tally!

The Best of the Rest

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

  • 2nd – William Fuhrimann – Chaos Space Marines (Renegade Raiders): Chosen and Legionary MSUs in Rhinos backed by Destructors and Warp Talons.
  • 3rd – Stefan Ruh – Genestealer Cult (Index): Horde plus infiltrating Aberrants and a few Jackals as early board presence.
  • 4th – Eric Wehrli – Thousand Sons (Cult of Magic): Ultra Character-heavy Thousand Sons with a Mutalith.

Critical Fail 40k Major

35-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Langford, BC, Canada on June 15 2024. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Sean Haworth – Imperial Knights (Noble Lance) – 1st Place

Imperial Knight Castellan
Imperial Knight Castellan. Credit: Jack Hunter

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Somehow the Knight Castellan has Returned

Thoughts

The famed take-on-all-comers champion of mid-Eight Edition returns in style here, introducing a whole new generation to the biggest and nastiest guns in the business. Why? I guess there is a genuine extent to which many lists will just flat fail to handle this. On the subject of 8th Edition, the ubiquity of the Predator Destructor means we’ve slipped a little bit back towards volume mid-tier weaponry being the tool of choice for hunting tanks, along with buffed melta, and the Castellan’s 2+ save and T13 makes it highly resilient to that, as well as a lot of the melee threats that are out there. Gladiator Lancers and Hammerheads are definitely a problem you have to dodge, but if you do it does feel somewhat possible to just scythe through the metagame with the big guns, especially with Canis Rex in tow for close-quarters murder. Fascinating to see one appear now of all times, well done to Sean for unleashing such a blast from the past!

Idavoll Heimdall – Necrons (Obeisance Phalanx) – 2nd Place (Undefeated)

Szarekh, The Silent King. Credit: Rockfish
Szarekh, The Silent King. Credit: Rockfish

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Obeisance Ultraphalanx

Thoughts

Hell yeah, this rules! The Silent King is genuinely back to being great in pretty much any flavour of Necrons, but he’s particularly good in Phalanx thanks to access to -1D, which similar to the Castellan stacks up really well into a lot of current threats. Because he can protect his own output from Damage Reduction via one of his auras, you can end up in a situation where he really dominates the table, particularly when backed by heavy firepower and a comic number of Lychguard.

I’m assuming that the plan is to footslog the two shield units with Imotekh and the vanilla overlord, use the Night Scythe to stage the warscythe unit, and Rapid Ingress the Triarch (who are particularly good with the Detachment Ability), and that can certainly present the foe with trouble from a lot of different angles (and inflict serious attrition on melee forces with Sentinels of Eternity). Re-rolling Doomsdays hopefully get you the rest of the way there. I love how completely different to anything else we’ve seen this is, huge props to Idavoll and a great way to close part 1.

The Best of the Rest

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

  • 3rd – Aaron Guest – Necrons (Canoptek Court): The Silent King lends his power to Court as well, powering up a mixture of Wraiths and Doomstalkers.
  • 4th – Travis Grant – Blood Angels (Sons of Sanguinius): Lots of jump pack MSUs, a Redeemer loaded with two troubleshooting squads, and a massive brick of Sanguinary Guard with Dante.
  • 5th – Jesse Baker – Drukhari (Skysplinter Assault): Go-wide Skysplinter, cutting down the heft of some of the melee threats in favour of extra shooting from Ravagers and some solo Talos.
  • 6th – Patrick Greatbatch – Chaos Space Marines (Renegade Raiders): Mechanised melee and Warp Talons, plus the cool inclusion of a Winged Daemon Prince with Dread Reaver to absolutely butcher anything that lingers too long near the opponent’s deployment zone.

Wrap Up

That’s it from me, but we’ll have part two on Friday as normal with more unique and exciting builds to review.

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