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Competitive Innovations in 10th? No, More Elves! pt.2

By James "One_Wing" Grover

So, the way this ended up split in two, part 1 didn’t live up to the title that well.

Now, face to bloodshed.

Today we are looking at:

  • Battle To End Alzheimers GT 2023 (major)
  • BMC Cup
  • War in the Fort
  • Wars on the Shore

For any of the following, go look at Part 1 from Wednesday:

  • The Leeds Super-Major (supermajor)
  • Capital Clash
  • Board Room Brawl 2023
  • North Star Open

Battle To End Alzheimers GT 2023

75-player, 6-round Grand Tournament in Westminster, MD US on August 05 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Ruben I Fernandez – Aeldari – 1st Place

Night Spinner. Credit: Rockfish
Night Spinner. Credit: Rockfish

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Wraithknight + Go-Wide

Final Round Matchup

61 – 54 Victory against Ken Knox – Deathwatch.

Thoughts

Sure are some elves. I should know, I’m an expert. I guess it’s worth highlighting, since this list is a good example, the trend of running Farseers without a Bodyguard (usually using one with the Phoenix Gem). Indirect is a factor in the metagame, but particularly with the gem the amount that an opponent has to dedicate to ensure the Farseers die and stay dead (especially with Strands as a factor) that it isn’t the end of the world if you run into it.

Well done to Ruben.

Mathew Burgoon – Ynnari – 2nd Place

Credit: Greg Narro

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Ultimate Ynnari Go-Wide

Thoughts

Good grief. If you want to lean as hard as possible into go-wide elf shooting, Ynnari Ravagers is, in fact, the logical conclusion of that. Utterly hostile to the idea of enemy vehicles existing, and covers enough of the board quickly enough (plus packs Spiders and Spectres) to give it a shot against enemy hordes. Congratulations to Matthew on taking second.

Mark Hertel – Deathwatch – 3rd Place

Regal Skull Inceptors. Credit: Kevin Genson

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Target Light Deathwatch

Thoughts

This is a fascinating list, aiming to give itself a very small initial target profile while still being able to rack up massive damage from turn 2. A big Eradicator squad (with Captain) out of reserves is another tool that’s utterly inimicable to enemy hulls, while dropping in lots of bolter inceptors then going hog wild with Deathwatch Stratagems is a powerful play. For covering the board early, the list condenses down to two units of Veterans in Rhinos plus some Desolation Marines, which is super easy to hide, but still projects quite a bit of threat. You can even do Infernus Bolter drivebys with one of the Rhinos, which is just hilarious. This list ends up with a fighting chance of staying concealed even against Towering-heavy or very fast builds, and throws massive punches when it gets going. Builds like this which present a very small attack surface are great for wrongfooting people, and combining that with Deathwatch’s ultra-powerful go turns is a great way to prepare for victory. Well done Mark.

Ken Knox – Deathwatch – 4th Place

Deathwatch veteran Isak Al’Tah. Credit: Charlie Brassley

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Screening/Kill Team Deathwatch

Thoughts

Our second Deathwatch build (which had a serious go at taking down Ruben’s Aeldari in the finals) looks a bit more conventional,, though still not entirely routine. You’ve got two big Kill Teams as the anchors, with lots of screening to give them space to operate, and Desolation Marines/utility pieces to back them up. The main difference from the default is that the list goes very hard on the screening/utility killers (e.g. the Inceptors and Eradicators), which gives it lots of flexibility into the mobile factions at the top. Seems to have worked out well for Ken, who put in a fantastic performance to round out the top four.

The Best of the Rest

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

  • 5th – Jonathan Kolson  – Adeptus Custodes: Two big Custodes bricks, plus the more unusual choice of putting a full squad of Vigilators in a Rhino.
  • 6th – Tyler Principio  – Chaos Daemons: Be’lakor, Shalaxi and a Bloodthirster lead from the front, two Soul Grinders blast stuff, and a bunch of Hounds and Flamers play for objectives.
  • 7th – Jeremy King  – Adeptus Custodes: Triple Caladius plus a big squad each of Allarus and Wardens.

BMC Cup

All the lists for this event can be found in Tourneykeeper.

Rafal “Krawat” Anusiak – 1st Place

Credit: Arranon

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Wraithknight + go-wide

Final Round Matchup

20-0 victory vs Mikołaj Janiec – Tyranids

Thoughts

The elfing will continue until morale improves. Morale is somehow not improving, so the elfing is continuing. Not complicated.

Congratulations Rafal.

Danny Porter – Tau – 13th Place (Undefeated)

XV86 Coldstar Battlesuit. Credit: Rockfish
XV86 Coldstar Battlesuit. Credit: Rockfish

Look, WTC scoring does some weird stuff sometimes, OK. There was only one undefeated player at this event, and it was Danny in 13th, and a Tau list is a heck of a lot more interesting than more elves.

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Tau Murder Suits

Thoughts

Danny’s list here provides a timely demonstration of some of the principles we saw in yesterday’s Tau Faction Focus. A big Crisis team does your heavy lifting, backed up by more small Crisis units, Broadsides as efficient units to park and shoot, and durable/dangerous Lone Operatives like Shadowsun, Aun’Va and a Ghostkeel to park on objectives. Tetras and Piranhas provide efficient early objective grabbers and excellent Observers (especially the Tetras) to glue it all together, and the list ends up fairly chunky on the table, and able to play effectively both at killing and objective play. The main extra piece of tech we see in Danny’s build is the use of a single airburst in the big Crisis team. This insures against a situation where you move them, have no valid targets, and your opponent Rapid Ingresses a powerful melee unit out of Line of Sight from them. Having one airburst means that they can still be selected to shoot, making the eligible for Strike and Fade to get them out of dodge. Tau can’t afford to lose their key units without taking lots of stuff with them, so it’s a smart addition to the normal loadout.

Well done Danny on taking the Tau through a tought field undefeated.

The Best of the Rest

As you might have inferred from the above, the scores here were all over the place, draws everywhere, even more mixed up than WTC scoring tends to be. I’m just going to fill out all 11 players in between the two above.

  • 2nd – Grzelich – Dark Angels (GTF): Board control, indirect, and the Lion with a bunch of Deathwing Knights as a central brick.
  • 3rd – Jakub Vladdi Podruczny – Tyranids: Maleceptor/Exocrine monster mash, with Gargoyles and Biovores for scoring.
  • 4th – Rutus – Aeldari: Wraithknight/Wraithguard.
  • 5th – Slawomir – Tyranids: Exocrines and Zoanthropes with a Barbed Hierodule as a centrepiece.
  • 6th – Egatrot – Genestealer Cult: Horde with Ridgerunners, no Aberrants.
  • 7th – Neraden – Adeptus Custodes: Big Guard brick, two Warden bricks.
  • 8th – Behemoth – Aeldari: Wraithknight and Fire Prisms.
  • 9th – Grzegorz Kowalik – Necrons: Loads of durable bricks, two Lychguard blocks plus 20 Warriors with Orikan, with three Hexmarks to ride shotgun.
  • 10th – Łukasz Dudzic – Genestealer Cult: Double Aberrant brick.
  • 11th – Khanrad – Aeldari: Wraithknight/Wraithguard.
  • 12th – Kerszur – Aeldari: Double Wraithknight and Wraithguard.

2023 Wars on the Shore GT

34-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Erie, PA US on August 05 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Travis King – Genestealer Cult – 1st Place

Cult of Sirens Aberrants. Credit: Lupe

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Horde and Aberrants

Final Round Matchup

100 – 77 Victory against Matthew Laveault – Necrons.

Thoughts

We now enter the genestealer half of the proceedings, where this especially murderous spin on the Cults took down the vent in the hands of Travis. Going full triple Primus plus infiltrating Aberrants definitely helps in the Necron game he faced in the final, as they’re otherwise one of the few factions who can plausibly roll with GSC punches. With the sheer viciousness this build is ready to unleash, even that isn’t going to be enough, and Travis was rewarded with a big win!

The Best of the Rest

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

  • 2nd – Tyler Wilson  – Tyranids: Monster mish-mash, with a bit of everything.
  • 3rd – Chris Annear  – Genestealer Cult: Horde with Aberrants, plus some Jackal MSUs for scouting.
  • 4th – John Williams  – Aeldari: 3×10 Wraithguard. Have mercy.
  • 5th – Jan Klinger  – Khorne Daemons: I mean it’s lots of Bloodthirsters and Be’lakor, there’s really only one way to go here. Skulltaker gets a look in as well.
  • 6th – Matthew Laveault  – Necrons: Double Monolith, hell yeah.
  • 7th – Steven Horowitz  – Imperial Knights: Higher pressure Knights with a Warden and Valiant.

War in the Fort GT

29-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Fort Smith, Arkansas US on August 05 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Purge the Foe – Chilling Rain – Crucible of Battle

Peyton Preece – Genestealer Cult:
Army List - Click to Expand

vs.

Howard Watts – Ultramarines: Shooty hull-heavy Ultramarines with Bobby G.
Army List - Click to Expand

Thoughts

Despite how brutal the Genestealer list is here, the combination of the mission and the presence of a full Desolation Squad makes this pretty interesting. Purge the Foe is probably the mission that the GSC want to play least in this matchup, as it’s going to be much easier for the Ultramarines to play for kills and kill more, especially on turn 1. That means that the Cults can’t just assume they’re going to out-Primary the Ultramarines, so need to come up with an alternative plan.

I suspect the answer there is that they aim to deny Secondary as hard as possible. While the Ultramarines killing power is phenomenal, they’re short of anything like Inceptors that can force the issue on a Secondary requiring getting into the enemies Deployment Zone. The Genestealers just have so many models (and an endlessly respawning supply of units), plus tools that can force their way into almost any position, that I think if they hold their nerve, grind up Hold More, and focus on maximising the number of dead cards the Ultramarines could draw at any moment, they can probably reliably take this. For the Ultramarines, that means their goal is to try and push a beachhead out somewhere that gives them the ability to strike for the enemy deployment, but that’s so high risk into Acolytes that it’s not going to be reliable.

From the score, I think that sounds like a plausible model for what happened – the Ultramarines put up a great score, but the GSC got the full hundred.

Result

Genestealer Cult Victory – 100 – 93

Peyton Preece – Genestealer Cult – 1st Place

Neophytes. Credit: Rockfish
Neophytes. Credit: Rockfish

The List

See showdown

Archetype

Pure Horde

Thoughts

This, also, is an extremely good list. So goddamn many bodies. Deeply upsetting.

Well done Peyton.

The Best of the Rest

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

  • 2nd – Eli Harvey  – Deathwatch: Loads of dakka, most notably a full Desolation Squad and a full Sternguard unit.
  • 3rd – Mike McKinney – Imperial Knights:  Triple bigs, packing a Paladin, Crusader and Valiant.
  • 4th – Howard Watts  – Ultramarines: See showdown.
  • 5th – Brian Preece  – Imperial Knights: Full hero mode with Canis Rex and a Lancer.
  • 6th – Brent Simon  – Aeldari: Wraithknight and lots of Night Spinners.

Wrap Up

Another week down. Next time, we’ll have the results of the WTC, plus plenty more events to look at. We also have the good news that some balance updates are coming, so if you’re a fan of armies in the Red Zone (complimentary) get your reps in while you can, while if you’re in the Red Zone (derogatory), rejoice because your salvation is maybe coming?

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