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.

It’s another massive week in the competitive scene, once more pushing this column to three parts to accomodate the sheer volume of gaming that is going on.

Hell yeah.

Out on the tabletops, GSC and Guard continue to perform extremely strongly, but there’s plenty of upheaval on the lower tables as people tinker with lists and find out what works best in the new world. That seems to be particularly true in Space Marine land, with Templars stabilising in a healthy place after an early wobble, Wolf Jail somehow still going strong, and Roboute Guilliman striding back onto tables to push Ultramarines towards the top tiers. Over in the realms of Chaos and Xenos, we’re also seeing Death Guard sustain their surprising early push for the top, Daemons thriving, Tau unleashing ever more Crisis suits, and Chaos Space Marines rolling with the blow of hits to Accursed Cultists.

This week also has lots of familiar faces playing their signature factions as the meta really powers into top gear, and it’s clear there’s still plenty to play for as the World Championships of Warhammer approaches, especially if the Aquilon change is adopted widely.

Let’s see what’s going on out there, starting today with:

Raccoon Rumble 2024: WH40K
Battle Brothers GT Hosted by Away Games
Broadsword Wargaming 40K ITC Seasonal Major VI
40K Iron Man
Napalm Hobbies – FROST FIRE GT – 40K – ITC

On Friday Lowest of Men will cover:

Utah Open Warhammer 40K Tournament
San Antonio Shootout ’24
Bunker Down GT 2024 RBBR
Cardiff Carnage #2
TORNEIO NACIONAL POLAR DE WARHAMMER 40K

…and I’ll return on Saturday with:

The California Cup ’24
4th Annual Flames of Autumn GT
40K Peninsula Feast of Blades ’24
Hydra Events GT IIII 2024

Tri-partite articles mean triple democracy, and this week the patrons have voted for the following Showdowns:

Retaliation Cadre vs. Tyranid Invasion Fleet at the 40K Iron Man
Mont’Ka T’au vs. World Eaters at the San Antonio Shootout
Imperial Knights vs. Slaanesh Daemons at the Peninsula Feast of Blades

Raccoon Rumble 2024: WH40K

196-player, 6-round Supermajor in Hof, BY, Germany on November 08 2024. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Niklas Fritschen – Chaos Daemons (Daemonic Incursion) – 1st Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Shooty Monster Mash

Thoughts

A more cautious spin on Daemons here, using Be’lakor and big birds to force the enemy to engage, then unleashing Shalaxi for a vicious counter attack. That can help overcome some of the more brutal shooting builds out there, and cutting out the Great Unclean One also frees up plenty of points for cheap board control like Screamers, playing dual purpose as early objective grabbers and screening against GSC. Daemons have a seriously powerful toolbox to play with, and the sheer variety on show in top builds really hammers that home, and big congratulations to Niklas for going a little off-piste and taking a supermajor trophy!

Manuel Wayand – Chaos Space Marines (Renegade Raiders) – 2nd Place (Undefeated)

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Shooty Raiders

Thoughts

Obliterators were incredible winners out of the Dataslate, as they hit the classic timing of starting to rise in popularity late enough prior to it that they got buffed. They’re seeing a big surge in success both in Raiders and Veterans of the Long War, which both bring great buffs for their shooting and access to Armour of Contempt to augment their native 2+ save. Here, Manuel’s Raiders back them with Destructors and some newly cheap roving melee threats, which feel particularly good for providing protection against Cults. CSM have some pretty great all-rounder quality builds like this one, well done to Manuel for taking them to the top.

Matthias Bellmann – Adepta Sororitas (Bringers of Flame) – 3rd Place (Undefeated)

The List

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Archetype

Hull Spam Bringers

Thoughts

Rounding out the undefeated players we have the extra crunchy variant of Bringers of Flame, packing in loads of quality hulls, the Triumph for the soul destroying double Miracle Exorcist to pop 12W tanks, and Vahl’s Paragons as countercharge crunchy in case anyone gets funny ideas about rolling the list over. (Sometimes) solo Junith also shows up as a powerful engine who also provides backfield screening against Aquilons. Nothing wildly surprising beyond that, but it shows that Sisters are still very good, if not as dominant as they were when they had 100+ more points to spend on random scoring stuff. Well done to Matthias for upholding the Emperor’s tenets despite that.

Pascal Haberstroh – Tyranids (Crusher Stampede) – 4th Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Crusher Monster Mash

Thoughts

Oh lawd they coming. I’m afraid there’s not too much subtle tech to talk about here – this build just uses durable bodies to march forward onto objectives, ideally with the Swarmlord chilling behind a wall nearby, and then obliterates whatever comes out to deal with them using appalling firepower. If that isn’t quite enough, then late game the Swarmlord can burst through a wall to go on a rampage, which will often be enough to seal the deal alongside pushing Tyrannofex bodies up just to seize positions. The threat of a Rapid Ingress 6 OC Trygon is also very real, retaining a trick that is being knocked out elsewhere. Tyranids continue to look stealthily strong – their win rate is middle of the road, but they’re putting up a healthy number of top finishes, and great stuff from Pascal for being one of them.

The Best of the Rest

There were 15 more players on 5-1 records (plus one 4-2 who was in the top cut). They were:

5th – Leif Westermann – Aeldari: Fire Prisms and speedy Aspects.
6th – Grischa Gerwert – Ultramarines (Vanguard Spearhead): The classic teleporting Centurions, but this time supported by the man himself Bobby G.
7th – Thomas Büttelmann – Black Templars (Gladius Task Force): A full Primaris Crusader brick with Grimaldus protecting loads of shooty hulls.
8th – Christopher Schade – Ultramarines (Vanguard Spearhead): A second showing for Bobby G’s Centurion Circus.
9th – Mathieu Clerc – Leagues of Votann: Hearthguard-heavy Votann, putting one big unit in reserve and two smaller squads in Land Fortresses.
10th – Christian Breuer – Genestealer Cult (Biosanctic Broodsurge): Aberrant MSUs and Purestrains with one Metamorph Truck and lots of Ridgerunners in support.
11th – Kevin “planB_God” Zöllinger – Black Templars (Gladius Task Force): A second outing for the big Grimaldus brick and hulls plan.
12th – Arne Zerndt – Thousand Sons: Rubricae Tsons.
13th – Martin Nguyen – Space Wolves (Stormlance Task Force): ThunderCav and Vindicators.
14th – Niels Bernheiden – Astra Militarum: Double Dorn, double Aquilons, lots of Russes.
15th – Daniel Klammer – Necrons (Awakened Dynasty): An unusual Dynasty list with two Wraith bricks and a couple of Doomsdays overseen by the Silent King and a Catacomb Command Barge.
16th – Gregor Werner – Drukhari (Skysplinter Assault): The classic mix of Skysplinter murder tools plus some Talos.
17th – Nikolai Stocks – Adeptus Mechanicus (Skitarii Hunter Cohort): Duneriders, Ruststalkers and Disintegrators.
18th – Sebastian Gehart – Genestealer Cult (Xenocreed Congregation): Aggro horde with a bunch of Metamorphs and Acolytes with Biophaguses and Iconwards in charge.
19th – Stefan Max – Black Templars (Gladius Task Force): Grimaldus and a big Crusader blob with shooty hulls, again, but this time some of the shooty hulls are Ballistus dreads.

Battle Brothers GT Hosted by Away Games

78-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Carthage, NC, United States on November 09 2024. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Blue Ford – Orks (Bully Boyz) – 1st Place

Ork nobz unit Black Squiggoth. Credit: Charlie Brassley

The List

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Archetype

Aggro Bullyz

Thoughts

Bully Boyz smash back onto the scene here, albeit with a very different build to what we’ve seen in the past. One of my issues with the army has always been that the damage output of the Meganobz builds was really low, allowing savvy opponents to focus on killing off the few high output targets (which were also usually far less durable) then kind of just roll with the punch from there. This build throws most of the Meganobz out in favour of lots of damage-dealing units, three nasty Trukk-bound murder squads and a backup unit of Snaggas to boot.

It also gets some great utility from Zodgrod’s mega grot squad, who seem fantastic in the current metagame, able to either go fast and gum up the movement of hull-heavy lists, or providing enormous ground coverage against deep strikers. I also like the Deffkoptas a lot here, as they’re super cheap and provide a high-reach Grenades unit that can plink away stragglers, which lists with relatively concentrated threats like this can otherwise struggle with. Really innovative tech on show here, superb performance from Blue.

Mark Hertel – Ultramarines (Gladius Task Force) – 2nd Place (Undefeated)

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Ultra-trifecta

Thoughts

Bobby G returns to the battlefields of the 41st millenium in a big way this week, teaming up with Calgar and Ventris as a terrifying triumverate to conquer battlefields in multiple configurations. Going to feel just a little smug about calling this one.

Bobby G is incredible value at 285pts, and teaming him up with Calgar and Ventris gives you an astounding level of stratagem advantage that lots of foes can struggle to deal with. A free Stratagem every turn and extra CP and CP tax, all of which is on powerful mid-board bruisers who can surge up the table with Assault Doctrine is incredibly nasty, and also gives some really strong toolboxy potential here with big stuff like Redeemers and Centurions. Always having access to Overwatch and Armour of Contempt is incredibly good on these (and it’s excellent that you can potentially do both turn 1 if you go second against aggressive lists), and this list feels very likely to pull ahead early game. If it does, sending out the terrible trio to finish the job is going to bowl over a lot of foes, and this build looks like the real deal. Great stuff from Mark as always.

Timothy Huebscher – Chaos Knights (Traitoris Lance) – 3rd Place (Undefeated)

War Dog - Karnivore. Credit: Rockfish — War Dog – Karnivore. Credit: Rockfish

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Atrapos and Dogs

Thoughts

Chaos Knights take the third undefeated slot here, spicing up their War Dog selection with an Atrapos. This is pretty much the top big Knight choice across both flavours right now (excluding Canis Rex), as giving you a way to trump enemy shooting builds that threaten to grind through the War Dogs is very important, and it has a pleasingly versatile melee loadout. Beyond that, Karnivores and Brigands are still some of the best datasheets in the game. That has not changed. Shocking. Congratulations to Timothy on taking third.

Michael McCaffrey – Death Guard (Plague Company) – 4th Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

All-rounder Death Guard

Thoughts

Death Guard are really vibing right now, able to skew in several directions or just go with an all-rounder build like this. Good shooting from Destructors and Brigands, great durable brawlers in the Deathshrouds, and a nice bit of shock melee and Fight First headache causing from the big Plague Marine squad. Just vibing. Buzzing, maybe. Who can say. Good job Michael.

The Best of the Rest

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

5th – Duncan Bluhm – Astra Militarum: Double Tank Commander and lots of Scions of both flavours, with one Rough Rider unit as melee counterpunch. Also adds some Regimental Attaches as a smart bit of tech for the mirror, all the deep strike screening of a Navigator with the occasional option to wander out and make something getting shot with demo cannons even more dead.
6th – Larry Oliver – Tyranids (Invasion Fleet): Shooty Monster Mash with a Zoanthrope unit added for turbo dakka.
7th – Austin Wingfield – Space Wolves (Champions of Russ): Very left field herohammer melee infantry aggo, centring around a big Assault Centurion unit.
8th – Frank Viruet – Astra Militarum: Double Tank Commander, double Aquilons, one big Bullgryn brick.
9th – Stephen Fore – Tyranids (Crusher Stampede): Go-wide monster mash, taking lots of cheap and cheerful bruisers and dakka bugs.
10th – Mike Robertson – T’au Empire (Retaliation Cadre): Crisis toolbox and Riptides.
11th – Randy Yejo – Chaos Space Marines (Renegade Raiders): One big Accursed unit backed by Destructors, Chosen and Rubricae.

Broadsword Wargaming 40K ITC Seasonal Major VI

51-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Castlebar, County Mayo, IE on November 09 2024. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Sam Nash – Astra Militarum (Combined Regiment) – 1st Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Triple Aquilon Russes

Thoughts

Guard master (and my nemesis) Sam unleashes the full power of Aquilons here, going for a full three units so that enemy objectives and squishy toys can never feel safe, and combining them with the patented Nassim Fouchane firebase. Combinging regular Russes with an Exterminator and and a Hellhound (plus optional Fields) gives you eye-poppingly deadly Battle Cannons, and you’ve got the Tank Commander on top for whenever anything needs to be turbo dead. This build grinds foes into the dust with (appropriate) military efficiency, and it’s definitely one of the lists to beat right now (even with the upcoming Aquilon change). Congratulations to Sam on taking the trophy.

Colin Power – Chaos Knights (Traitoris Lance) – 2nd Place (Undefeated)

War Dog - Brigand. Credit: Rockfish — War Dog – Brigand. Credit: Rockfish

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Dogs

Thoughts

Dogs. Colin let them out.

The Best of the Rest

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

3rd – Tom Maher – Emperor’s Children (Veterans of the Long War): Chosen/Legionaries to brawl, Vindicators and Obliterators to blast.
4th – Aidan “GULLMAN” Lee – Adeptus Mechanicus (Skitarii Hunter Cohort): Loads of Ironstriders and lots of elite Skitarii MSUs, with Cawl also here to support the striders.
5th – Pearce Condren – Chaos Daemons: Shooting-skewed Monster Mash with Big Bird and Kairos behind a GUO and Skarbrand.
6th – Thomas Phillips – Orks (Bully Boyz): Mechanised mega armour.
7th – Ian Wilson – Orks (War Horde): Triple Kill Rig War Horde.
8th – Richard Flood – Necrons (Hypercrypt Legion): C’tan and Doomsdays.
9th – Michael Mc Carthy – Blood Angels (Liberator Assault Group): Lots of Sanguinary Guard, a big Death Company brick with Astorath for extra murder instead of Lemartes, rounding out with Baal Predators and Mephiston.
10th – Dara Meehan – World Eaters: The standard World Eaters setup.

40K Iron Man

34-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Farsley, England, GB on November 09 2024. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Unknown Mission

I mean, the pack says “playing the first five ITC missions in order” so ??? Possibly this tournament pack has been spewed forth from the warp after vanishing from 2020. It could also mean Mission E, I guess? Which is the incredibly uncomplicated Take and Hold/Prepared Positions/Hammer and Anvil.

Adam Battle – Tyranids (Invasion Fleet)
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vs.

Dom Ridley – T’au Empire (Retaliation Cadre)
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Thoughts

This looks like a fairly rough mismatch, because this Tau build is tooled to do horrendous things to those poor Tyranids. Crisis suits slip perfectly into the gap between what Exocrines are efficient at killing and what Tyrannofexes do well, and stacking those with the Ghostkeels combo of lone operative and no-selling the first few big hits makes it incredibly unlikely that the bugs win any sort of damage race here. That’s a big problem when the Tyranid relies fairly heavily on being able to out-shoot the foe, and they can’t trivially work around it given that the Ghostkeels can move onto an objective and demand a fairly heavy commitment to shift. Maybe there’s a world where the big Genestealer unit pins stuff down for one turn and then Shadow of the Warp does a big flip, but I’m not seeing it, that triple Ghostkeel is just such a spoiler to any route the bugs have out of their predicament. The scoreline appears to reflect that.

Result

T’au Empire (Retaliation Cadre) Victory – 100 – 49

Dom Ridley – T’au Empire (Retaliation Cadre) – 1st Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Retaliation Cadre Suits

Thoughts

Retaliation Cadre continues to jet around the battlefields blowing stuff up here, though there’s a little bit of variation in the builds out there. Dom’s version cuts Riptides entirely for lots of Ghostkeels, which can be good in games like the Showdown where they really demand enemy engagement, baiting the perfect trap for all the Crisis to spring. Loading up on a couple of dirt cheap Strike Teams is also an interesting and fairly effective way to round things out – sometimes a list like this is going to have to pivot to just defending a score lead, and they’re a cheap and cheerful way of doing it, and can amusingly scatter around -1 to hit while waiting behind a wall to sell their lives later on. It’s great that the cool Tau army is so strong right now, and I’m a big fan of Dom’s version of it, well done!

Callum Byers – Adeptus Mechanicus (Rad-Zone Corps) – 2nd Place (Undefeated)

Adeptus Mechanicus - Tech-Priest Manipulus — Adeptus Mechanicus – Tech-Priest Manipulus
Credit: Pendulin

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Grindy Boat AdMech

Thoughts

Our second undefeated build from this event leans on it being extremely challenging to win a protracted gunfight against Skorpii at this point, as the combination of their 2+ save and the boosts from Protector Imperative thoroughly stack the dice in their favour. If, for some reason, that isn’t enough gun violence then the big Breacher unit can probably finish the job, and while that’s in progress you get a decent amount of objective flipping potential from the Duneriders and their passengers. It does feel like a build where if your opponent does spike through the defences (or properly bodies you with fast melee) you can suddenly find yourself in a bit of trouble, but Callum clearly managed to calculate a path through the event where that unfortunate set of circumstances did not arise!

The Best of the Rest

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

3rd – George Leathley – Space Wolves (Stormlance Task Force): Wolf Jail with some Gladiator Lancers.
4th – Dom House – T’au Empire (Kroot Hunting Pack): Kroot Horde backed by Shadowsun and one Hammerhead.
5th – Edward Kershaw – Necrons (Hypercrypt Legion): Quintuple C’tan.
6th – Josh Croft – Leagues of Votann: All-rounder Votann with a bit of everything.
7th – James Holland – World Eaters: World Eaters with a Lord of Skulls and extra Spawn to fill up space on the cheap.

Napalm Hobbies – FROST FIRE GT – 40K – ITC

29-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in England, United Kingdom on November 09 2024. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Mark Pocock – Blood Angels (Ironstorm Spearhead) – 1st Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Shooty Ironstorm Blood Angels

Thoughts

Last up this we we have a nifty use of the updated Blood Angels datasheets, acting as a perfect partner for shooty Ironstorm tanks. Death Company being cheaper at a cost of less dangerous into tanks helps their utility in Ironstorm a lot, as they’re a really good unit for punishing the fast melee that can counter it. The same is true for both the Sanguinor and Mephiston, who collaborate to make getting close to this army way less safe than you’d like it to be. Baal Predators providing ultra cheap Overwatch threats is just icing on the cake. This seems like a great way to use both the Blood Angels codex and revitalise Ironstorm, well done to Mark for putting it together.

The Best of the Rest

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

2nd – Patrick Dawson – Space Wolves (Champions of Russ): Melee herohammer Champions with lots of Jump Intercessors and a big Blood Claw brick with Ragnar.
3rd – Tom Coppin – Astra Militarum (Combined Regiment): Russes galore with one Bullgryn unit.

Wrap Up

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[40K] Competitive Innovations in 10th: Most Wanted pt.1

Raccoon Rumble 2024: WH40K

Niklas Fritschen – Chaos Daemons (Daemonic Incursion) – 1st Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

Manuel Wayand – Chaos Space Marines (Renegade Raiders) – 2nd Place (Undefeated)

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

Matthias Bellmann – Adepta Sororitas (Bringers of Flame) – 3rd Place (Undefeated)

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

Pascal Haberstroh – Tyranids (Crusher Stampede) – 4th Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

The Best of the Rest

Battle Brothers GT Hosted by Away Games

Blue Ford – Orks (Bully Boyz) – 1st Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

Mark Hertel – Ultramarines (Gladius Task Force) – 2nd Place (Undefeated)

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

Timothy Huebscher – Chaos Knights (Traitoris Lance) – 3rd Place (Undefeated)

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

Michael McCaffrey – Death Guard (Plague Company) – 4th Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

The Best of the Rest

Broadsword Wargaming 40K ITC Seasonal Major VI

Sam Nash – Astra Militarum (Combined Regiment) – 1st Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

Colin Power – Chaos Knights (Traitoris Lance) – 2nd Place (Undefeated)

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

The Best of the Rest

40K Iron Man

The Showdown

Unknown Mission

Thoughts

Result

Dom Ridley – T’au Empire (Retaliation Cadre) – 1st Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

Callum Byers – Adeptus Mechanicus (Rad-Zone Corps) – 2nd Place (Undefeated)

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

The Best of the Rest

Napalm Hobbies – FROST FIRE GT – 40K – ITC

Mark Pocock – Blood Angels (Ironstorm Spearhead) – 1st Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

The Best of the Rest

Wrap Up

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