type here...
Patrons: click here to disable ads.
Columns40K Competitive InnovationsGamingCompetitive PlayMeta Analysis
Updated:

Competitive Innovations in 10th: Night of the Living Deathwing pt.2

By James "One_Wing" Grover

Will there be fewer Dark Angels this time? No, no there won’t. Greg is hooting and hollering just off screen.

Anyway, we have had some regretable technical issues that have prevented Lowest of Men from accessing the juicy, juicy content, so you’ve got me, Wings again for a late column. You will be pleased to know that we have fixed said technical issues by switching the Gregbot that only tells lies off and back on again, and normal service will resume next week.

Today, I’ll be looking at:

  • Waterdeep GT 3ra Edición
  • Protect Ya Neck
  • Clowns Massacre
  • The Carolina Open Hosted by Away Games

If you’re looking for the following, check out part 1 also with me, Wings:

  • The North East Open 2024
  • Boise Cup 2024! (40k)
  • Winter Warfest
  • FactoruM Warhammer 40,000 GT July 2024
  • Free State MId Summer GT

Waterdeep GT 3ra Edición

53-player, 6-round Grand Tournament in Jesús María, Ags., México on July 27 2024. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Xavier Barrera – Dark Angels (Gladius Task Force) – 1st Place

Dark Angel Hellblasters led by a Librarian (Credit: Musterkrux)

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Invulnerable GTF Angels

Thoughts

As the title indicates, this is adapted from the list that Ben Jones ran to the top four at Sheffield a few weeks back, so we’ve already seen this in action. The conceit here is that by including Azrael and two Librarians you can have all three of your alpha power armour units sporting a 4+ Invulnerable Save, giving you a huge boost in resilience against a lot of the tools people are packing to take on exactly this kind of army. This enhances the already considerable strength of Dark Angels, and makes the Hellblaster unit a really nice all-round troubleshooter for the mirror. This is very much the Dark Angels list you pack to take out other Dark Angels, so expect to see plenty more of it if current trends continue, and well done to Xavier on the win.

The Best of the Rest

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

  • 2nd – Luis Humberto Casillas Franco – Grey Knights (Teleport Strike Force): Six Deadknights and a full Terminator unit. GW – if you want people to stop doing this, you will ahve to make it literally impossible, it’s very clear nothing else is gonna work.
  • 3rd – Ari Baez – Chaos Space Marines (Renegade Raiders): Mechanised Rubricae, Legionaries and Chosen with Vindicator backup.
  • 4th – Joakim Rivera – Chaos Space Marines (Renegade Raiders): See previous, but also Cypher is here.
  • 5th – Alex Ash – Adepta Sororitas (Bringers of Flame): Speedy flame Sisters.

Protect Ya Neck

45-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in England, GB on July 27 2024. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Matt Charles – Blood Angels (Sons of Sanguinius) – 1st Place

Flesh Tearers Death Company. Credit: Drybrush Threepwood

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Flesh Tearer Sons

Thoughts

Dark Angels are soaring high, but Blood Angels remain one of the game’s top factions, and they’re out on a rampage here. Plenty of the familiar tools on show, albeit a bit more all-rounder – going for Flesh Tearers gives you a compelling reason to build an absolutely monstrous foot unit for Seth to wander about with, but losing Lemartes means you can’t rely as much on sheer overwhelming force in the air. Taking some Baal Predators and a Repulsor helps give this build more options, and it’s a cool spin on the standard, great stuff from Matt.

Markus Hinson – T’au Empire (Mont’ka) – 2nd Place (Undefeated)

Shadowsun. Credit: Rockfish
Shadowsun. Credit: Rockfish

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Go-wide Shooting

Thoughts

Packing in a bunch of cheap shooting theats continues to pay off for Tau, though this build does continue the trend of Commander/Starscythe units being such a bargain now that you take one to help pad out the diversity of targets you can take on. Shadowsun also gets a look-in here, presumably because if you’re taking Hammerheads at their new price you really want them operating at peak efficiency. Beyond that, it’s business as usual – Tau get a massive amount of stuff, and as Mont’ka they can make it their opponent’s problem at high speeds. Well done to Markus on undefeated second place.

The Best of the Rest

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

  • 3rd – Christopher Langton – Necrons (Hypercrypt Legion): C’tan and Heavy Destroyer spam, with one big unit of Wraiths as a sticky threat. Instilling dangerous thoughts like “I could straight field this” in my head, even though I promised the Aeldari I would be loyal to them for the summer.
  • 4th – Sebastian Long – Aeldari (Battle Host): Avatar with triple Fire Prism backup. Remember Fire Prisms? Still fine, apparently.
  • 5th – Michael Duff – Grey Knights: Six Dreadknights. ISTG.
  • 6th – Alaeze Ugoala – Adeptus Custodes (Shield Host): The current Custodes hotness of three Infantry blocks, 3×3 Venatari and two Caladius tanks.
  • 7th – Alex Clare – Space Wolves (Champions of Russ): Two big ThunderCav units and two full Bladeguard bricks, one with Ragnar for attac, and one with a Judiciar for protec.

Clowns Massacre

38-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Thành phố Hồ Chí Minh, Vietnam on July 27 2024. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Unknown Mission

Wings: Fun fact – I searched for the event name in Facebook, which is one of the ways I normally find out what mission got played, and for the first time ever it warned me that the search might return “graphic content”. Considering the naming conventions of the average 40K event, I’m honestly surprised this was the first time.

Vinh Tran – Chaos Knights (Traitoris Lance)
Army List - Click to Expand

vs.

Phạm Xuân Thủy – Drukhari (Realspace Raiders)
Army List - Click to Expand

Thoughts

There tends to be exactly one reason you’d stick to Realspace Raiders over Skysplinter, and sure enough there are six Talos here. At that point, you absolutely want access to -1 to Wound against incoming damage, and combining with their 5+ Feel No Pain for effective defence against almost everything.

I’m going to be real here – I’m writing this in a hurry, I can’t find out what mission it was, and the scoreline is not close – this is an absolutely horrific matchup for the Chaos Knights. The Drukhari have the guns to clear War Dogs at speed, good amount of threat redundancy, defence in depth via their Transports, and the extra pain tokens from the detachment are honestly super useful so you can get early re-rolls on all the Talos to unleash haywire hell. I am quite genuinely unsure what you even do as the Knights here beyond hoping the Drukhari mess up badly. They clearly did now.

Result

Drukhari (Realspace Raiders) Victory – 93 – 53

Phạm Xuân Thủy – Drukhari (Realspace Raiders) – 1st Place

Drukhari Alliance of Agony | Credit: Garrett “John Condit” Severson

The List

See Showdown

Archetype

Talos Spam

Thoughts

Skysplinter is clearly still the standout option for Drukhari, but seeing an event win for Realspace does make you stop and evaluate how Talos sit in the current metagame, and they honestly look pretty great. T7 with access -1 to Wound is a great place to be against Blood Angels, twin-linked haywire is fantastic into some key targets, and the rise of Deathwing Knights makes D3 melee weapons premium. I am officially declaring them “neat”, and congratulations to Phạm on making them work.

The Best of the Rest

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

  • 2nd – Vinh Tran – Chaos Knights (Traitoris Lance): See Showdown.
  • 3rd – Jensen Goh – Death Guard (Plague Company): Plague Marine Rhinos, Destructors, a massive Poxwalker unit and a Knight Lancer for style points.
  • 4th – Carlos Trinh – Imperial Knights (Noble Lance): Canis Rex, a bunch of Armigers and some Assassins.
  • 5th – Viet Pham Hoang – Death Guard: Plague Marine Rhinos, Deathshrouds and some War Dogs.
  • 6th – Victor Koh – Adepta Sororitas (Hallowed Martyrs): Some top all-rounder Sisters hits plus Canis Rex.
  • 7th – Duy Nguyen – Death Guard: Crunchier Death Guard with lots of Deathshrouds, some Bloat-Drones and some War Dogs.
  • 8th – Dickson Chow- Thousand Sons: Double Mutalith Tsons.

The Carolina Open Hosted by Away Games

34-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Carthage, NC, United States on July 27 2024. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Austin Wingfield – Adepta Sororitas (Hallowed Martyrs) – 1st Place

Credit: Greg Narro

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

All-rounder Sisters

Thoughts

A nice break from the Bringers of Flame norm to finish here, still using some of the best Sisters Datasheets, but branching out into the cool choice of a Sacresant unit with Junith as a melee hammer. It also sports the fancy murder missile of a jump Canoness with Through Suffering, Strength, ideal for butchering a target, getting owned, jumping back up with Divine Intervention and doing it again, but harder. Good fun, and list diversity is always welcome, well done Austin.

The Best of the Rest

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

  • 2nd – Mark Hertel – Deathwatch (Black Spear Task Force): Really just showing off here. Lots of Veterans as a core, Inceptors to take advantage of jumping back into the sky, and a full Sternguard unit to squeeze maximum value from the various bolter Stratagems.
  • 3rd – Stephen Fore – Imperial Knights (Noble Lance): Heavily aggro Knights, going for Canis Rex and a Lancer.
  • 4th – Emory Garrett – Drukhari (Skysplinter Assault): A particularly Incubi-heavy Skysplinter build, taking a mighty 25 alongside the usual hits.
  • 5th – Ryan Lappin – Black Templars (Righteous Crusaders): Lots of mechanised Sword Brethren/Herohammer units.

Wrap Up

That’s it for this week – we’re ramping up into a season of big events, so we’ll have plenty more for you in the next few weeks.

Have any questions or feedback? Drop us a note in the comments below or email us at contact@goonhammer.com. Want articles like this linked in your inbox every Monday morning? Sign up for our newsletter. And don’t forget that you can support us on Patreon for backer rewards like early video content, Administratum access, an ad-free experience on our website and more.

Previous articleDetachment Focus: Green Tide (Updated August 2nd, 2024)
Next articleDetachment Focus: War Horde (Updated August 3, 2024)
© Goonhammer LLC