After last week’s Sheffield Supermajor, this time it’s the turn of the United States to give us a big Pariah Showcase. The weekend saw both the first US Open of the new season in Tacoma and the Lone Star Open, and we’ve got all the hot details from those, plus a decent crop of other tournament to dig into.

Today I’ll be covering:

Warhammer 40,000 Grand Tournament: US Open Tacoma
Baltic Cup XII – WCW Qualifier Golden Ticket
[Ropecon] Warhammer 40.000 – The Monsters of Hyperbölea
TLM x Layton July GT
Los clavos del Carnicero

On Friday we’ll have the following from Lowest of Men:

Frontline Gaming LSO 2024 Warhammer 40K Champs
Dice Arcade Winter GT
Saskatchewan Open 2024
Forthvalley GT 2024

Out of these, our wonderful Patrons have selected the following two Showdowns:

Mont’ka T’au vs Chaos Daemons at the Baltic Cup.
Skitarii Hunter Cohort vs Shield Host Custodes at the Dice Arcade GT

Warhammer 40,000 Grand Tournament: US Open Tacoma

438-player, 8-round Supermajor in Tacoma, WA, United States on July 19 2024. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Marshall Peterson – Orks (War Horde) – 1st Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Note: Eagle-eyed Ork players will notice that there’s an issue here – because the Battlewagon has an ‘Ard Case, Ghaz and his Meganobz cannot ride in it. This was identified during the shadow round of the event, at which point Ghaz was removed from the transport and placed in a legal deployment position, and Marshall was given a 10VP penalty. Despite this penalty, Marshall won his shadow round game and went on to win the event. Bear this in mind if you’re planning on using this build as inspiration, as the jump from T10 to T12 makes a big difference on the model.

Archetype

Mechanised War Horde

Thoughts

As Bully Boyz and Green Tide stocks have fallen, War Horde has shot back up in popularity as people are reminded that it’s a really good detachment. This build takes advantage of GW terrain being pretty kind to large models – they can both hide and maneuvre pretty well, whereas a lot of terrain sets support one or the other. With this in mind, three Kill Rigs packed with Snaggas is an incredible pressure setup, and also accumulates enough anti-tank shooting that enemy hulls can’t operate with complete impunity in turn. Roll across the table, mow the foe down, rinse, repeat – it worked for Marshall all the way through the tournament, and definitively shows that there are still Ork builds that have the juice in Pariah.

Scott Ketcham – Adepta Sororitas (Bringers of Flame) – 2nd Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Speedy Mech Sisters

Thoughts

Next up, while there’s definitely still a bit of churn in exact builds, this list is looking like the Sisters list to beat. Castigators provide tremendously efficient all-round firepower, Dominions have the speed and punch to prise stuff out of ruins, and you get two massive hammer pieces from the Warsuit unit and the Seraphim (here not even bothering with the flamer Enhancement, apparently they’re just good). Cap all that off with extreme reliability from the Triumph and you have a build that’s both extremely solid on the fundamentals and has a high skill ceiling that rewards players who use their Miracle Dice to maximum effect. Congratulations to Scott on taking second!

Chuck Arnett – Leagues of Votann (Oathband) – 3rd Place

Trans-Hyperian Alliance Hekaton Land Fortress. Credit: Colin Ward

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

All-rounder Votann

Thoughts

Speaking of solid fundamentals – in third place we’ve got a Votann build that takes a bit of everything and ends up extremely potent. Worth noting that, while they’ve always been pretty good, bigger bike units and Graviton Thunderkyn are really in their element right now, as they’re great at picking off Space Marines thanks to massed D2 firepower. Also interesting to note the choice to go for two Land Fortress Hearthguard units rather than one big block in reserve, which I suspect is a mixture of GW terrain favouring the transport option and wanting to make sure you can punch up into monster mash style lists. This feels like the perfect balance of tools, and it clearly worked well for Chuck, taking him to third place!

Jaden Iwaasa – Space Wolves (Champions of Russ) – 4th Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

TigerWoodsBigDog.jpg

Thoughts

Two things going on here. First up, it looks like taking the previous Stormlance ThunderCav core and just fully pivoting it to Champions of Russ is a very strong move in Pariah (this isn’t the only successful example). You can still have access to Advance/Charge out of the gate for one of your units, and you get a much better suite of tools for dealing damage and adapting to situations, vital in a fairly diverse metagame. I’m pretty happy that this is straight up the better choice of the two at the moment, so a fan of what’s going on here. I also like Bjorn a lot in Pariah – both he and the Swarmlord are massive winners from the change to Stratagem tax abilities, as they’re durable enough to throw themselves into the fray with impunity.

The other notable presence is, of course, Canis Rex. I have always been a little surprised not to see him out and about more often, as he’s just super good on rate, but now that his Stratagem discount ability works more broadly on core Stratagems he’s even better, and I expect to see more Imperium lists giving him a go as the season progresses. If that plays out, big congratulations to Jaden on being a trendsetter and on rounding out our top four.

The Best of the Rest

The 5th and 6th place players both played in a shadow round after going undefeated through round 6. They and the rest of the top 16 were as follows:

5th – Steve Trimble – Tyranids (Vanguard Onslaught): Extreme board pressure Vanguard with lots of Genestealers, multiple Mawlocs, a big melee Warrior unit and some Zoanthropes in support. The Swarmlord oversees everything, making it even tougher for foes to break out once the wave of pressure hits.
6th – Jeff Jew – Dark Angels (Gladius Task Force): Melee GTF with loads of Deathwing Knights, a Darkshroud for alpha protection, and a few Vindicators for supporting fire.
7th – Caleb Smith – Astra Militarum: Tank-tastic with Double Dorn, double Tank Commander and a Russ Exterminator to amp up AP.
8th – Stu Angel – Thousand Sons: Double Mutalith Tsons.
9th – Donald Plummer – T’au Empire (Retaliation Cadre): A Crisis toolbox with one unit of each type and some Commanders to assign as needed, supported by Ghostkeels and Riptides.
10th – David T- Thousand Sons: Tsons going light on Rubricae in favour of a big Scarab unit, an extra Daemon prince and some cheap board presence.
11th – Chris Jung – Tyranids (Invasion Fleet): Monster mash with the Swarmlord, a Flyrant (really maxing on Stratagem access) and the dakkafex/Old One-Eye brick.
12th – Alex Macdougall – Tyranids (Vanguard Onslaught): A slightly less all-in variant of Vanguard, taking one unit of all the big hits, the Swarmlord, and lots of Ravener MSUs for board presence.
13th – Nicholas Fromme – Adepta Sororitas (Bringers of Flame): Mostly the speedy variant of Bringers with Dominions and the Seraphim flamer unit, but also adding a second unit of Paragons for a bit of crunch.
14th – Linton Rowan – Space Wolves (Champions of Russ): Max ThunderCav/Wulfen, but it’s Champions of Russ now.
15th – Jordan Schnur – Necrons (Hypercrypt Legion): Heavy Hypercrypt, adding in a unit of Skorpekh as a counter-charge threat.
16th – Ken Bush – Adepta Sororitas (Bringers of Flame): Speedy Dominion/Seraphim/Immolator Bringers.

Baltic Cup XII – WCW Qualifier Golden Ticket

98-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Altenholz, SH, DE on July 20 2024. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Take and Hold – Raise Banners – Tipping Point

Jan-Hagen Rath – T’au Empire (Mont’ka)
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vs.

Niklas Fritschen – Chaos Daemons (Daemonic Incursion)
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Thoughts

The terrifying firepower of Mont’ka faces off against the just plain terrifying Daemons here. The Mont’ka build has got a lot of the firepower hulls you’d expect plus some Starscythe teams with Commanders. These are very much on the rise in Pariah, as they’re incredibly cheap now, and the AP boost into elite infantry they can offer to Commanders is very valuable in the metagame. Two units here gives some great anti-horde punch, and pretty much any list has to respect the killing power here.

The Daemons build here certainly does, though they can at least breathe a sigh of relief that they’ve stuck with Be’lakor rather than going more aggro with Khorne stuff. The build is pleasingly versatile as Daemon builds go, taking slightly cheaper and shootier big Daemons (though still enough to present scary threats), and using the freed up points to take a good variety of board control pieces. That’s very much going to help into Tau, as it means they can rack up some damage at range while Be’lakor provides protection, and also gives them some assets to sacrifice.

Despite that, I would still have guessed this as a fairly comfortable win for the Tau – while the Daemon build does force them to close if they want to go on the offence, they’ve got ample tools to clear out the board control, and enough redundancy to go for the throat if they need to.

This is very much not what happened, with the Daemons taking a massive 20-0 victory – a fairly emphatic rejection of my thesis. In terms of how, having had a look at the tournament pack I think it came down to terrain. This game was played on GW layout 1, and with the Tipping Point objective setup this ends up favouring the Daemons a lot. Tau basically cannot hold an objective outside their Deployment zone without being in range of a staged charge from the Daemonettes (which will rack up some free Banners points for Daemons when it happens), while Daemons can build a Be’lakor castle on their near No-Man’s land objective that’s fairly difficult for the Tau to attack. The angles are really not very good, and if they overcommit to try and get enough firepower into play, the Daemons might just be able to pull a big counterattack. You also have to factor in Kairos – if he’s chilling out in the mid-field staging position, Tau aren’t going to be able to draw on that many Stratagems to help out either.

My suspicion is that Tau probably found themselves stuck on 5VP a turn for Primary, went for a Secret Mission to try and flip it and failed, because otherwise I would still have expected this to be closer, but overall this is a real object lesson in how much terrain can shake up evaluations of a game.

Result

Chaos Daemons (Daemonic Incursion) Victory – 20 – 0

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

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Flexible Daemons

Thoughts

As covered above, this is a Daemons build that allows cagier, more flexible play than some of the ones out there, and that really came into its own in the final. It also showcases, once again, that the CP tax aura is really vicious on stuff tough enough to get into the fray, which Kairos very much is. Great work Niklas.

Niklas Frerichs – Dark Angels (Gladius Task Force) – 2nd Place (Undefeated)

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Brawler Dark Angels GTF

Thoughts

OK, I will admit that the Lion showing up was not on my bingo card, even with his newfound ability to defeat walls in honourable combat. On reflection, probably the more important factor is his Mortal Wound protection aura now working against Devastating Wounds, as it combines with his 3+ Invulnerable Save to ensure there’s no trivial way of putting him down.

Here he helps this GTF build capitalise on the pressure that multiple units of Deathwing Knights slamming forward at once can exert, able to flex between just being another point of pressure when needed, or slicing up priority targets if there’s something the Knights can’t handle afoot. We also get to see a Repulsor in action, letting a Fire Discipline Aggressor brick play some silly transport games, and ensure that if some sort of horde confronts the unforgiven, they quickly regret it. Thanks to their Dataslate buffs Dark Angels have a really nice suite of unique Datasheets to work with, and it’s cool to see them out and about, especially the Lion, so well done Niklas.

Pau “Conejo Malo” Poensgen – Drukhari (Skysplinter Assault) – 3rd Place (Undefeated)

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Classic Skysplinter

Thoughts

Pretty much business as usual for Skysplinter here, with the main thing to highlight being the inclusion of a Court of the Archon, as using this to build a particularly nasty Battleline unit is really good in Pariah. Otherwise, all the hits are here, and Skysplinter seems well placed to attack the current metagame, something that Pau has very much executed on here.

Marvin Petersen – Dark Angels (Gladius Task Force) – 4th Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Brawler Dark Angels GTF

Thoughts

Two Lion lists? Two? Most of what’s going on here is covered in the second place writeup, with the main difference being cutting the Repulsor for a second Inner Circle Companion unit with a Judiciar. I like that combo a lot – there’s so much nasty melee about at the moment that if you can build a Fights First unit that meaningfully threatens big Blood Angels bricks, you absolutely should. Great tech piece, and rewarded with a fourth place finish for Marvin.

The Best of the Rest

There were 12 more players on 4-1 records. They were:

5th – Frank Grollmuß – Tyranids (Invasion Fleet): Monster mash with one big Termagant unit.
6th – Malte Höfs – Chaos Space Marines (Renegade Raiders): Hull-heavy Raiders adding some Predators and a Land Raider to the normal mix, with a reduced (but still threatening) complement of melee nasties in the Transports.
7th – Jan R – Necrons (Hypercrypt Legion): Hybrid Hypercrypt with some of the heavy stuff but also a Monolith and Wraiths to do stunts with.
8th – Felix Haak – Tyranids (Invasion Fleet): Monster Mash.
9th – Tim Schlizio – Genestealer Cult (Biosanctic Broodsurge): Ultra-aggro Cult with loads of Acolytes, lots of Purestrains and one big Aberrant unit. Trucks help with staging and on-board protection.
10th – Alexander Tepe – Blood Angels: Jump pack onslaught, doubling up on Priest/VanVet units.
11th – Jan-Hagen Rath – T’au Empire (Mont’ka): Go-wide Mont’ka, mixing some Crisis teams into the normal suite of Riptides, Breacherfish and Sky Rays.
12th – Chris “W3irdBoy” Buchen – Chaos Knights: Whoops all dogs.
13th – Simon Rosen – World Eaters: A return to the classic Berzerker/Eightbound mix, not a Forgefiend in sight.
14th – Hannes Hoferichter – Flesh Tearers (Sons of Sanguinius): An unusual go-wide version of Sons, foregoing big bricks with Priests in favour of taking as many small jump units as possible, and adding a couple of Reiver units with Lieutenants for flexible scoring.
15th – Sebastian Dargel – Leagues of Votann: A relatively unique Hearthguard-free Votann build, instead packing a big unit of pretty much every other choice, lots of Sagitaurs, double Fortress and some shiny new Yaegirs.
16th – Andre Bals – Adepta Sororitas (Bringers of Flame): Speedy-ish Bringers, adding an Exorcist to the usual mix.

[Ropecon] Warhammer 40.000 – The Monsters of Hyperbölea

47-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Helsinki, Uusimaa, Suomi on July 20 2024. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Juha Ottelin – Blood Angels (Sons of Sanguinius) – 1st Place

Blood Angels Chaplain Lemartes. Credit: Jack Hunter

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Jump Pack Sons

Thoughts

…And here we have exhibit A for why Fight First is so good right now, because even with a lot of the metagame teching to beat this army, it’s still one of the top lists. Part of that is because we’re seeing some counter-adaptation – more and more builds are going for the double VanVet/Priest setup, because the sheer durability of that unit compared to the other available options helps survive the onslaught of anti-Marine weaponry you’ll face on the top tables. We can see that in action here, and Juha was able to overcome all challengers to take the trophy.

Kaarle Tukia – Adepta Sororitas (Bringers of Flame) – 2nd Place (Undefeated)

Adepta Sororitas Castigator Battle Tank - Order of the Gilded Cilice - Credit: Colin Ward — Adepta Sororitas Castigator Battle Tank – Order of the Gilded Cilice – Credit: Colin Ward

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Speedy Bringers of Flame

Thoughts

Another one of the army’s to beat in undefeated second here – we’re already very familiar with this build, and you should make sure you practice against it if you’re serious about winning events. There’s some little flex choices you can swap in and out like the Daemonifuge, but right now the core of this build is so strong that you end up shooting yourself in the foot if you go too far outside the norm. Congratulations to Kaarle for taking second place with it.

The Best of the Rest

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

3rd – JP Huttunen – Nurgle Daemons (Daemonic Incursion): Extra tough Nurgle monster mash, maxing out on GUOs and adding some Soul Grinders on top!
4th – Perttu Hiisivuori – Black Templars (Gladius Task Force): All-rounder combined arms Templars.
5th – Pekka Koskivirta – Chaos Space Marines (Pactbound Zealots): Classic Brawler Pactbound with a big Chosen brick.
6th – Aleksi Lehtiö – Drukhari (Skysplinter Assault): Go-wide Skysplinter, adding Talos and allied Skyweavers to lots of the normal treats, though cutting down on transports to pay for it all.
7th – Eero Saukkonen – Adepta Sororitas (Bringers of Flame): Speedy Bringers.
8th – Samppa Orhanen – Drukhari (Skysplinter Assault): Venom-heavy Skysplinter.

TLM x Layton July GT

36-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Altamonte Springs, FL, United States on July 20 2024. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Jack Harpster – Aeldari (Battle Host) – 1st Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Aeldari Herohammer

Thoughts

The classic Aeldari combination here – deal massive damage, provide minimal opportunity to do any back. In a metagame heavy on 2W Infantry the Shuriken Windrider unit is your premium Fire and Fade option, with the reach and output to force the opponent to plan around it. Adding the Warlock really helps it land, as Ignore Cover on AP-1 weapons makes a massive difference into the most important targets. The spread of nasty Fights First units is on show here too – the Visarch and Yvraine with a big troupe is a very versatile threat and a massive trump card against other melee builds. I’ve just added the Visarch and a Troupe to my own Aeldari build with great success, so I encourage you to try him out if you haven’t.

All that’s very cool, but outside the Avatar where is the staying power? That’s the neat part – this build is so good at pivoting to Secret Missions, that it doesn’t really need any. If it goes second it can basically always score one, and has a good shot at several going first, meaning that if the game demands it you can be very cautious with Primary while focusing on locking in Secondaries, then sweep to victory later on. That inevitability can force foes to try and go on the offence, where the counterpunch of the Avatar and all the herohammer nonsense will pay off. Classic Aeldari, and I love seeing them do so well, great stuff from Jack.

Quinton Johnson – Adepta Sororitas (Bringers of Flame) – 2nd Place (Undefeated)

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Speedy Bringers of Flame

Thoughts

See previous re: Hot Girl Summer. Although I believe the media has been informing me that we actually call it brat summer now. Very confusing. Anyway, great work Quinton.

The Best of the Rest

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

3rd – Garrett Befera – Orks (War Horde): Aggro War Horde mixing Beastbosses in Trukks with some Squighog MSUs.
4th – Eric Andrews – Blood Angels (Sons of Sanguinius): A mix of jump pack threats and a central Redeemer/Assault Intercessor counter-charge bastion.
5th – Nick Lee – Nurgle Daemons: Another heavy Nurgle Daemon list, taking three Soul Grinders and this time allying in a Knight Rampager.

Los clavos del Carnicero

28-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Berriozar, Navarra, ES on July 20 2024. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Gispano MdE – Death Guard (Plague Company) – 1st Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Crunchy Death Guard

Thoughts

A melee-skewed variant of cunchy Death Guard closes out our winners for today, opting for Karnivores instead of the more common Brigands as allied Knights, and also going for big Nurgling units to allow for maximum move blocking during deployment. Mortarion also makes an appearence, and between him and the Knights you’re definitely brave if you’re charging into this without a solid plan to clear your targets. The ever reliable Predator Destructor rounds things out, providing great all-purpose firepower while the foe is wading through Nurglings and Robots. Great work Gispano!

The Best of the Rest

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

2nd – Erik Hermosilla – Astra Militarum (Combined Regiment): Double Dorn with double Executioner to tee them up.
3rd – Julen Ramón – Chaos Daemons (Daemonic Incursion): A Nurgle anvil of Rotigus and a GUO, Khorne hammer from Skarbrand/a Bloodthirster, and lots of board presence to keep the points rolling.
4th – Fermín Arbea – Drukhari (Skysplinter Assault): Vehicle-heavy Skysplinter, adding Ravagers and a Voidraven.
5th – Borja David Palacio Valdueza – Tyranids (Invasion Fleet): Lots of monsters with a central horde of Termagants around a Tervigon.

Wrap Up

Part 1 down, plenty more to come in part 2 as we zip down to Texas for the LSO.

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Competitive Innovations in 10th: Open for Business pt.1

Warhammer 40,000 Grand Tournament: US Open Tacoma

Marshall Peterson – Orks (War Horde) – 1st Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

Scott Ketcham – Adepta Sororitas (Bringers of Flame) – 2nd Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

Chuck Arnett – Leagues of Votann (Oathband) – 3rd Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

Jaden Iwaasa – Space Wolves (Champions of Russ) – 4th Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

The Best of the Rest

Baltic Cup XII – WCW Qualifier Golden Ticket

The Showdown

Take and Hold – Raise Banners – Tipping Point

Thoughts

Result

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

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

Niklas Frerichs – Dark Angels (Gladius Task Force) – 2nd Place (Undefeated)

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

Pau “Conejo Malo” Poensgen – Drukhari (Skysplinter Assault) – 3rd Place (Undefeated)

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

Marvin Petersen – Dark Angels (Gladius Task Force) – 4th Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

The Best of the Rest

[Ropecon] Warhammer 40.000 – The Monsters of Hyperbölea

Juha Ottelin – Blood Angels (Sons of Sanguinius) – 1st Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

Kaarle Tukia – Adepta Sororitas (Bringers of Flame) – 2nd Place (Undefeated)

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

The Best of the Rest

TLM x Layton July GT

Jack Harpster – Aeldari (Battle Host) – 1st Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

Quinton Johnson – Adepta Sororitas (Bringers of Flame) – 2nd Place (Undefeated)

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

The Best of the Rest

Los clavos del Carnicero

Gispano MdE – Death Guard (Plague Company) – 1st Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

The Best of the Rest

Wrap Up

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