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Competitive Innovations in 10th: Meta-morphosis pt.1

By James "One_Wing" Grover

Warhammer is happening. Lots of it, as it happens, the scene infused with new vigor by the Balance Dataslate. It’s the first week with enough data to really sink our teeth into, and the news looks pretty good – Aeldari are still strong, and most other previously high-performing factions are still doing decently (with Custodes recovering a bit from last week), but there’s whole clutch of other armies that are now putting in work, and the field looks pretty open going into the LGT. We love to see it.

Today we’ll be looking at:

  • Flying Monkey Con (major)
  • Battle in the Bush (major)
  • Malta Grand Tournament 40K
  • Rooks 40k Open
  • ROC Hard GT

On Friday, my esteemed co-conspirator Lowest of Men will be covering:

  • Warzone Houston (major)
  • Armed Forces Day (major)
  • Harbor Heresy
  • Icehammer
  • Carnage At The Outpost

This week’s Showdowns, voted for by the Goonhammer patrons, are:

  • Space Wolves vs Chaos Space Marines at the ROC Hard GT
  • Astra Militarum vs Chaos Space Marines at (appropriately) Armed Forces Day
  • Votann vs Chaos Knights at Harbor Heresy

Flying Monkey Con 2023 – Warhammer 40k GT

133-player, 6-round Grand Tournament in Wichita, KS, United States on September 23 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Ben Cherwien – Aeldari – 1st Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Ah god dammit

Final Round Matchup

Edit: This got mixed up in the original version of this article, now corrected.

100 – 54 Victory against Colin Kay – Chaos Space Marines

Thoughts

OK yes – the Aeldari are, in fact, still somewhat here, just way more beatable than before. There are some more out-there lists elsewhere, but the build Ben’s using here showcases one effective strategy, which is just to stick to Fire Prisms, objective units and the Yncarne and proceed as previous. Almost all lists trying this are taking at least one Spinner, as they’re vital to the Necron matchup, and you’ll certainly see more Swooping Hawks than before just to shave a few points, but it would appear that the ongoing experiment as to how expensive Fire Prisms have to be before they’re not a three-of proceeds apace. Well done to Ben for his victory.

John Indellicate – Tyranids – 2nd Place

Norn Emissary
Norn Emissary. Credit: Pendulin

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Monster Mash

Thoughts

The Norn Emissary gets her first big outing here, running rampant alongside a Hierodule in this monster-heavy build. Everything here hits like trucks, and the Emissaries provide some incredible staying power against counter-attacks once they’re safely on their designated objectives. Sticking to the classic invasion fleet helps tool the monsters to whatever targets they need to kill, clearly more valuable to an already ultra-tough list than the increased durability from Synapse, and also provides access to an emergency early Feel No Pain on a Norn if the opponent tries to alpha them before they can advance. Great to see new units getting an exciting workout, well done to John.

Cody Jiru – Aeldari – 3rd Place

Credit: Greg Narro

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Go-wide Ynnari

Thoughts

This build represents a bit more of a shakeup compared to what went before. The Ravagers are still here, but rather than accompanying them with Craftworld shooting the Drukhari guns are kind of it, with the Asuryani and Harlequins instead providing some speedy/ultra-tricksy harrassment units (Phantasm on a full Ranger brick with Illic is just as annoying as ever). Scorpions also get a look in as a surprisingly nasty early skirmishing piece, and the last thing of serious note is the addition of multiple Beastmaster units. These were already seeing fringe use as a source of a lot of wounds for the cost in Ynnari builds, and dropping down in price in the Dataslate means they’re ultra-efficient now, and a great way to add board presence without breaking the bank. Definitely cool to see some experimentation and updates here, and it feels like there’s plenty more depth in Ynnari to explore. Congratulations to Cody.

Dan Sammons – Dark Angels – 4th Place

Deathwing Knights. Credit: Kevin Stillman

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Knights and Dakka

Thoughts

The big wheel of “which Marine tank is slightly too efficient” has been spun, and this time around it somehow seems to have landed on Predators, which are everywhere this week. The Destructor is, to be fair, pretty spicy, as it gets a lot of shots and is great into most targets thanks to the mix of the anti-elite autocannon and two sponson lascannons. Add Oaths and that’s pleasingly universal, and a great backup to a solid wall of Deathwing Knights, who continue to be one of the crunchiest units out there (and far less likely to get trumped by something without Wraithknights being about). Marines also get way more support units backing these core toys up at their new prices, and I’m a big fan of both Inceptors and the Phobos Libby/Infiltrator unit. Looks like a lot of fun to play, and editorial position continues to be that Dark Angels winning is Good, so great stuff from Dan.

The Best of the Rest

There were 10 more players on 5-1 records. They were:

  • 5th – Howard Watts – Ultramarines: The Calgar/Ventris tag-team strikes again, dropping a nightmare Aggressor brick down wherever they’re needed.
  • 6th – Bryce Watson – Aeldari: Defiantly still doubling up on Avatars.
  • 7th – Zaak Kerstetter – Aeldari: Prisms, Spinners and the Yncarne.
  • 8th – Colin Kay – Chaos Space Marines: Lots of Chosen in Rhinos, plus tanks and Haarken, with some utility Daemons rounding things out.
  • 9th – Talon Rooney – T’au Sept: Farsight/Shadowsun tag team, with two big bricks of Crisis and some Broadsides for heavy lifting.
  • 10th – Matthew Doughman – Imperial Knights: Ultra-aggressive triple bigs, going for Canis, an Atrapos and a Gallant. Doubles up on Assassins to help with board presence.
  • 11th – Bill Stineman – Orks: Trukks, Meganobz, Ghaz and an actual Gorkanaut! Also features some of the standard speedy threats and some Flash Gitz.
  • 12th – Sean Dilley – Chaos Space Marines: Abaddon, Obliterators and a Forgefiend, with loads of Nurglings and Accursed Cultists to gum up the table.
  • 13th – Mike Pestilens – Chaos Space Marines: Abaddon gunline with some Daemon backup, running Syll’esske as a Fuegan-style pseudo Lone Operative because of how hard they are to kill.
  • 14th – Quinton Alexander – Astra Militarum: Double Dorn Dilemma, with some Warglaives to help with board pressure.

Battle In The Bush 2023

74-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Orange, NSW, AU on September 22 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Egor Kalinin – Necrons – 1st Place

Necron Warriors
Necron Warriors. Credit: Pendulin

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Warriors, Lychguard and Doomsdays

Final Round Matchup

94 – 90 Victory against Dale Mann – Aeldari.

Thoughts

Necrons seize their first post-dataslate event win here, but probably not the last. The main change you see in effect here is that Warriors are seriously worth it now, as their biggest counters (Wraithknights and full Custodes bricks) have both exited the metagame. Sure, nasty Aggressor bricks might have entered the metagame, but they’re a fair bit easier to interact with, and almost anything else struggles to shift the big units. Add the ultra-crunchy Lychguard and super C’tan (both still incredibly worth it, and the latter desperately needing to be nuked from space, c’mon GW) and some good shooting to back it up, and you have something exceedingly nasty. Also worth noting the presence of Zahndrekh here, who can give Warriors or Lychguard some nasty extra bite in matchups where it’s needed, even after the reduction in the effectiveness of his Vect ability. Love to see Necrons thriving, well done Egor.

Woody Wu – Adeptus Custodes – 2nd Place (Undefeated)

Adeptus Custodes Caladius Grav-Tank
Adeptus Custodes Caladius Grav-Tank. Credit: Jack Hunter

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Termies and Tanks

Thoughts

After a very rough week last time, Custodes players seem to have somewhat adapted this week, and as expected the Caladius Grav Tank seems to be a major part of the play, helping ensure that Custodes don’t just get picked off piecemeal by enemy threats. What’s more interesting, and I think very smart, is the choice to go with lots of Terminators rather than sticking to smaller Custodian units or Wardens. There’s a lot of flat damage three out there, some of it Devastating Wounds, and 4W on the Terminators makes them much less vulnerable to being immediately blwon out by it. They’re also really good into hordes of either Accursed Cultists or Necron Warriors, as the Blast on their grenades combined with re-rolls into units with a CHARACTER along lets them do a serviceable Aggressor impression. Always good to see people adapting when their army takes a hit, so particularly well done to Woody.

Dale Mann – Aeldari – 3rd Place

Credit: Keewa

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Double Avatar Defiance

Thoughts

…and then we’re straight back to another build that’s sticking to “less of the same”. Double Avatar with loads of small units, especially ones like War Walkers that can press forward as Yncarne bait, gives the opponent a tonne of difficult targets and decisions, and backing it with double spinner lets you ensure they stumble while making those. That lets all the scoring stuff rack up Secondary points while the opponent dithers, and the Avatar is enough of an anchor that you can solidify a decent Primary score too. All potent as ever, and gave the also strong Necrons a great run for their money in the final, well done Dale.

Kyle Pearson – Orks – 4th Place

Ork Beastboss by Crab-stuffed Mushrooms

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Truckin’ and Krumpin’

Thoughts

Speedwaaagh? Speedwaaagh! This list roars towards the opponent and flattens them under a tide of Boyz, with Beastbosses and Mozrog providing a bit of punch-up potential into especially durable targets. There’s not that much nuance going on here, but it provides phenomenal pressure, and it’s another build that really wins from 10-model Custodes units going away – they just hard-countered plans like this way too hard. It also shows that there was a good degree of nuance in the dataslate, as Trukks and Beastbosses went up in that, and this list could easily have been running round with multiple additional units. It’s plenty powerful as is, and big congratulations to warboss Kyle racing to a top four finish with it.

The Best of the Rest

There were 9 more players on 4-1 records. They were:

  • 5th – Richard Hill – Death Guard: Mortarion backed up by a bunch of other hulls and a comedy clown car of Biologis Putrefiers to leap out and throw grenades.
  • 6th – Blake Harris – Chaos Knights: The duality of giant robots, sporting ultra-shooty (a Castellan Tyrant) and ultra-choppy (Rampager) with lots of War Dogs and the Changeling in support.
  • 7th – Jackson Barnard – Chaos Daemons: An interesting all-rounder build, featuring some monster mash energy from Be’lakor, Rotigus and an Endless Gift Unclean One, then lots of Daemon units with spicy Leaders (including another showing for Syll’Esske).
  • 8th – Oliver Cox – Space Marines: Aggressors and lots of hulls.
  • 9th – Colin Johnson – Chaos Space Marines: Triple Accursed Commune screening for lots of shooting, with a full Possessed unit as a hammer.
  • 10th – Peter O’Neill – Thousand Sons: Double Mutalith and Magnus.
  • 11th – Mitchell Corrigan – Grey Knights: Three Terminator squads, lots of Interceptors and a full Paladin brick.
  • 12th – Arian Fanaeian – Ultramarines: A Calgar Aggressor brick, Bladeguard out of a Repex and lots of dakka.
  • 13th – Jordan Palmer-Young – Chaos Space Marines: Pure Abaddon gunline with a Noctilith Crown.

Malta Grand Tournament 40K

34-player, 6-round Grand Tournament in Iż-Żejtun, Malta on September 23 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Mirko Consiglio – Genestealer Cult – 1st Place

Kelermorph. Credit: Rockfish
Kelermorph. Credit: Rockfish

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Pure horde

Final Round Matchup

77 – 73 Victory against James Pilkington – Adeptus Custodes.

Thoughts

Another build where something’s got to give in order to free up some points, and in this case it’s cutting Aberrants and sticking to a largely Battleline plan in order to afford multiple Acolyte units, who are as deadly as ever. The notable addition to what went before is the Kelermorphs, providing some useful counterplay against ascendant Chaos Space Marine and Necron builds, but otherwise this relies on doing what Cult did before – absolutely slamming the opponent on go turns, then sticking around long enough to lock in a win. Good job Mirko.

The Best of the Rest

There were 3 more players on 5-1 records. They were:

  • 2nd – Ryan Agius – Chaos Daemons:
  • 3rd – William Healey – Astra Militarum:
  • 4th – James Pilkington – Adeptus Custodes:

Rooks 40k Open, September 2023

32-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Bozeman, Montana, US on September 23 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Troy Oswood – Thousand Sons – 1st Place

Credit: Robert “TheChirurgeon” Jones

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Rubrics and Forgefiends

Final Round Matchup

100 – 66 Victory against James Walsh – Dark Angels.

Thoughts

A distinct shakeup to the Thousand Sons formula here, adding substantially more shooting from a pair of Forgefiends (and a Terminator Sorceror as a spotter) and packing a hefty wall of Rubricae to block the opponent from reaching them. That leaves the list a bit less able to move out in force early on, but it compensates for that with some Enlightened, who are a great bargain objective grabber, and does of course still have Magnus as a power piece. Quite different than the usual, and buys plenty of time to get lots of value out of its rituals – interesting stuff, and well played from Troy.

The Best of the Rest

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

  • 2nd – Jacob O’Neill – T’au Empire: A big Crisis unit and masses of small units to gun up the table.
  • 3rd – James Walsh – Dark Angels: Ultra-crunchy Dark Angels with three units of Centurion Devastators, three Deathwing Knight MSUs, plus a tooled-up Ravenwing Command Squad.
  • 4th – Jake Bowman – Aeldari: Extra-speedy Aeldari with Swooping Hawks, Skyweavers Voidweavers and the Avatar as an anchor.
  • 5th – James Davis – Ynnari: Go-wide shooting with some extra Drukhari utility pieces.
  • 6th – Zach Nicholson – Necrons: Warrior spam with some Doomstalkers as cheap backing.

ROC HARD GT

29-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in West Henrietta, NY, United States on September 23 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Priority Targets – Chosen Battlefield – Dawn of War

Keegan Leslie-Taylor – Space Wolves: Hulls and heroes – two RepExes, a Land Raider and an allied Knight Warden provide extreme crunch, while cheap and potent Thunderwolf units and a Blood Claw/Ulric countercharge bomb provide a bit of melee power.
Army List - Click to Expand

vs.

Matthew Bailey – Chaos Space Marines: Abaddon gunline with Nurglings and a full Terminator brick as an anchor.
Army List - Click to Expand

Thoughts

Goodness me is that a horrific number of ultra-crunchy targets in the Space Wolves list. Two Repexes and a Land Raider and a Knight is a huge lift for most armies to try and handle, and Space Wolves support it really well – ThunderCav with a Character are great little skirmishing units at a bargain price, and a full Blood Claw unit with Ulric out of a Land Raider is a great all-purpose blender. Full re-rolls into most relevant targets means there’s pretty much nothing they can’t murderise, especially if you give them Lance with Honour the Chapter. All very cool but…

If any list is ready to try and kill those hulls, it’s these Chaos Space Marines. Nurgle Forgefiends with Abaddon’s re-rolls do extremely unpleasant stuff to…well almost anyone, and 2+ saves with access to an Armour of Contempt equivalent is one of the few things the Claws will struggle with. That makes the big Terminator blob very handy here, especially with access to the full suite of Stratagems thanks to Abaddon’s leadership. Because the Forgefiends and Obliterators are Nurgle, they also have access to Dark Obscuration, so one Forgefiend can pop out and start shooting turn 1 with impunity, and later on the Obliterators can dodge a counter-punch.

Good tools, but that Wolves list is still nasty, so who wins? Here, it’s very much a case of looking to the mission, and I think this favours Chaos. They’re keener on playing a grindy game and trying to wipe the other side out, and can also speedbump the Marine tanks with Nurglings out the gate very effectively. I think that probably buys enough time to deplete the Wolves to ensure that Chaos are well-placed for end-game scoring, and sure enough while the Wolves put up a very strong score, the Chaos side got the full 100.

Result

Chaos Space Marines Victory – 100 – 79

Matthew Bailey – Chaos Space Marines – 1st Place

Credit: Robert “TheChirurgeon” Jones

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Abaddon Gunline

Thoughts

As above, this is one of the nastiest gunlines you can throw down at the moment, and the addition of Dark Obscuration gives it a real trump card against other shooting builds like Tau and the new loyalist gunlines. Being able to add grea utility from Nurglings and the Changeling is just a bonus on top of that, and the result is a super strong build. Lots of depth in Chaos Space Marines at this pont, and this showcases one of the ways you can get big value from them. Good stuff from Matthew.

The Best of the Rest

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

  • 2nd – Joseph Sault – Deathwatch: Crunchy Deathwatch with lots of Terminator MSUs and two big Indomitor teams.
  • 3rd – Keegan Leslie-Taylor – Space Wolves: A very unique list using Repexes and two small Thundercav units with Characters, plus a Knight Warden as extra pressure.
  • 4th – John Davison – Space Wolves: Herohammer for days, with most of the Wolves’ greatest champions taking the field together, leading some Thundercav and Bladeguard.
  • 5th – Gregory DiTomasso – Death Guard: A big unit each of Poxwalkers, Plague Marines and both kinds of Terminators, plus a Knight Desecrator to provide some really big shots.

Wrap Up

That’s it for part 1, join Lowest of Men on Friday for more of a tour through the new metagame (and also see how we both get on in the LGT Invitational).

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