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Competitive Innovations in 10th: Signature Look of Superiority pt.2

By James "One_Wing" Grover

Ah, hey, didn’t see you there. Welcome. Welcome back to the hell I have made for myself. I’m sorry I ever played Aeldari, OK? I’m a Necron player now. Please release me. Once again, President Stu, our metagame yearns for freedom, please send balance dataslate.

Today we’ll be covering:

  • Capital City Bloodbath (major)
  • Gateway Open (major)
  • The Pecking Order: Rise of Kings
  • Trident Wargaming Circuit – Iron Within
  • Power Behind the Throne
  • TLM x Layton Midnight Melee GT

On Friday we’ll be looking at:

  • Goonhammer Open US 2023
  • Salt Lake City Open 2023 (Supermajor)
  • Roll for Damage 2023 (major)
  • Grimdark 14
  • Iberian Perrees Tournnament
  • Bendigo Open

CCBB2023 – 40K Championship

83-player, 6-round Grand Tournament in Ottawa, ON CA on August 19 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Tim Deetlefs – Aeldari – 1st Place

Credit: Wings

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Wraithknight + hulls.

Final Round Matchup

71 – 58 Victory against Zach Comeau – Aeldari.

Thoughts

No! No!!

Congratulations to Tim.

Zach Comeau – Aeldari – 2nd Place

Avatar of Khaine. Credit: James “Boon” Kelling

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Wraithknight and crunch

Thoughts

Reasonably sure that at least one build with a Lynx has featured in this column already, but if not well done for ticking that one off the list. Otherwise, this build does flip the script somewhat in terms of target profile, basically having nothing soft for opponents to shoot at whatsoever, so that’s going to confound some counterplay. Nice work from Zach.

Nick Jagiello – Necrons – 3rd Place

Necron Hexmark Destroyer
Necron Hexmark Destroyer. Credit: Pendulin

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Ultra-shooty Necrons

Thoughts

Dense and deadly, which I guess is what you want from a metal skeleton. This build gambles on the Lychguard brick and Transcendant C’tan doing enough work to anchor the board, allowing lots of Doomsdays and Destroyers to blast the opponent asunder. Seems to have done just fine, and Hexmarks are strong for punishing counterplay.

Matthew Salouros – Deathwatch – 4th Place

Photo Credit: Musterkrux

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Triple Kill Team fiesta

Thoughts

How about those Proteus teams huh? This build makes phenomenal use of this strong unit, and builds them a fair bit more aggressively than the usual, going for assault cannons in two and more hammers in one instead of the usual cyclone launchers. That adds some extra melee punch and ends up pretty decent for inflicting chip damage on tough targets with access to Ectoclades for a double Oath turn. The standard Desolation brick and some utility Infiltrators/Inceptors fill out here, and this build captures something of the 8th/9th Deathwatch feel of getting into the opponent’s face and hitting like a freight train. Nice work from Matthew.

The Best of the Rest

There were 6 more players on 5-1 or 4.5-1.5 records. They were:

  • 5th – Éric Marcoux – Aeldari: Wraithknight and a bunch of go-wide stuff.
  • 6th – Hamza Syed – Aeldari: Triple Prism, triple Spinner.
  • 7th – Ridvan Martinez – Drukhari: Shooty Drukhari, packing the gun-toting halves of Kabalite units into Venoms, bringing three Ravagers and adding a Voidraven Bomber for massive damage out of reserves, also includes a couple of Harlequin Lone Operatives to shore up Drukhari’s lack of these.
  • 8th – Jean Masson – Genestealer Cult: Pure horde with triple Saboteur.
  • 9th – Jeremy “Curie” Atkinson – Genestealer Cult: Horde plus Aberrants.
  • 10th – Cody Bourgeois – Aeldari: Double Wraithknight, Spiders, Spectres.

Gateway Open 2023 40K Grand Tournament

70-player, 6-round Grand Tournament in Collinsville, IL US on August 19 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Brent Simon – Aeldari – 1st Place

Credit: Greg Narro

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Wraithknight + go-wide

Final Round Matchup

100 – 76 Victory against Ryan Beaver – Imperial Knights.

Thoughts

Is this a karmic punishment for me running Alaitoc planes in 8th? Have I been trapped in some sort of elf-themed hell since July? Much to consider.

Assuming he is not an agent of an ironically vengeful deity, well done to Brent.

Austin Howald – Aeldari – 2nd Place

Credit: Wings

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Pure go-wide

Thoughts

The army description gave me a sensible chuckle, so there’s that. Good job Austin.

Oh I bet the bit of 8th where I referred to myself as the world’s biggest Night Spinner fan is what I’m being punished for, actually. That would make sense.

Ryan Verbeck – Tyranids – 3rd Place

Carnifex. Credit: Rockfish
Carnifex. Credit: Rockfish

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Aggro bugs

Thoughts

Hell yeah, a non-Aeldari list. This list is very tasty, taking a monster mash formula and substituting Old One Eye and two grumpy friends for additional big bugs. That makes it much easier to hide a greater proportion of its threats, especially if it chucks some (Acid Spray Tyrannofexes being great candidates) into Strategic Reserves. That smooths out the chances of getting immediatley bodied off the table by Knights or Aeldari, but keeps an additional hefty threat. The equip loadout on the Carnifexes is interesting too – it appears to assume that Old One Eye has largely got melee handled (which, reasonable) and tools the others for high-volume dakka, leaning on OOE’s re-rolls to make it pretty reliable. That’s a real big-brain play, especially as high volume, full re-roll D1 AP-2 is pretty much the perfect thing to combine with the choice of Lethal Hits or Sustained Hits (or both, with Synaptic Insight) to be something that’s essentially universally relevant.

Adding all the standard objective tools Tyranids get on top of that makes this list seem very flexible and potent, and I really like what’s going on here, great work from Ryan.

Connor Johnson – Thousand Sons – 4th Place

Credit: Robert “TheChirurgeon” Jones

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Magnus and the Boys

Thoughts

Magnus and friends round out the top four here, and the big thing that’s notable is the clear decision that it’s just not safe to have Rubrics forced to start on the table in the Night Spinner hell that is the metagame. Rhinos provide strong early protection there, and putting the Umbralefic Crystal on the Terminators as well ensures they don’t get stuck if move debuffs from indirect start landing. Daemons provide some additional board coverage on top of that, and the overall package here feels especially well-tuned as Thousand Sons go. Great stuff from Connor.

The Best of the Rest

There were 3 more players on 5-1 or 4.5-1.5 records. They were:

  • 5th – Benjamin Frederiksen – Aeldari: Lots of shooty hulls and a Wraithknight.
  • 6th – Ben Spears – Imperial Knights: The extremely classic Crusader/Warden setup we talked about on Monday.
  • 7th – Chris Green – Aeldari: Many, many hulls, small and medium, plus a Wraithknight.

The Pecking Order: Rise of Kings GT 2023

53-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Olympia, Washington US on August 19 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Alex Pina – Thousand Sons – 1st Place

Credit: Robert “TheChirurgeon” Jones

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

I mean it says right there on the army list.

Final Round Matchup

100 – 56 Victory against Alex Elmore – Chaos Daemons.

Thoughts

Now if I’m honest, I think Rubric spam is slightly a misnomer, since they’re mostly here to provide a wide variety of places to hide the more desireable Characters, but whatever, we’ll go with it. Great board control, tonnes of Characters to generate a gigantic Cabal point pool, and some spare Wizards to hurl at the enemy to go down blazing with Grenades (from the ones that have them, at least) and Doom Bolts. Magnus and a Mutalith provide a solid hammer to back that plan, and lots of armies are going to struggle to muster much defiance here, the chip damage is absolutely astounding. Congratulations to Alex for giving all of Tzeentch’s favourite little wizards a big day out.

Tarzan – Orks – 2nd Place (Undefeated)

Credit: Tom Alexander

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Dakka Orks

Final Round Matchup

98- 50 Victory against Ed Smith – Genestealer Cult

Thoughts

Once again my sense of time and space is all over the shop, because it’s an Ork shooting list powered by Forge World units. What year is it? Who’s the president?

Anyway, this build presents a solid wall of stuff with high-ish toughness, making it very hard to clear with small arms, and the Grot Tanks combine a lot of rokkit shots with being extremely hard to pin down in melee thanks to their Scatter! ability. Flash Gitz are also exceedingly nasty as long as Badruk is leading them, and the accumulated firepower here is genuinely spectacular, and a huge nightmare for something like Custodes to deal with.

That doesn’t make running it undefeated any less impressive, particularly as the list seems like it might struggle to screen out GSC adequately, but beat them handily in the final round, so well done Tarzan.

The Best of the Rest

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

  • 3th – Marty Oconnell – Chaos Daemons: Monster mash adding a Daemon Prince with Wings (Khorne flavoured) as an easier-to-hide roving murder machine.
  • 4th – Jason Rider – Chaos Space Marines: Triple Warpsmith, Triple Lord of Skulls, a Noctilith Crown. Simple.
  • 5th – Jake Reuser – Aeldari: Wraithknight plus go-wide.
  • 6th – Ed Smith – Genestealer Cult: Horde with Aberrants.
  • 7th – Torin Holmes – Orks: Speedy herohammer Orks, with lots of Trukks carrying Snaggas and Beastbosses, Mozrog and a second Squigboss, Kaptin Badrukk with a (thanks to him) scary squad of Gitz, and Ghaz overseeing proceedings.
  • 8th – Steve Trimble – Adeptus Custodes: Given he won Tacoma with it, it will not surprise you to hear that Steve is still running triple Custodian block.
  • 9th – Nicholas Fromme – Thousand Sons: Magnus and the boys, splurging for two big Rubric units alongside the Scarabs (and thus not getting much beyond that!).

Trident Wargaming Circuit – Iron Within GT

37-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in St. Albert, AB CA on August 19 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Darren Jac – Genestealer Cult – 1st Place

Primus. Credit: Rockfish
Primus. Credit: Rockfish

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Horde and Aberrants.

Final Round Matchup

90 – 46 Victory against Aiden Vollmer – Thousand Sons.

Thoughts

Ah, well, nevertheless.

Congratulations Darren.

The Best of the Rest

There were N more players on X-1 records. They were:

  • 2nd – Dave Cruickshank – Imperial Knights: Another Crusader/Warden classic.
  • 3rd – Aiden Vollmer – Thousand Sons: Magnus and the boys with a big Scarab unit and The Changeling lurking at the back.
  • 4th – Chris Zuniga – Genestealer Cult: Horde with Aberrants, going for an Abominant instead of the usual Biophagus on the big boys. Way harder to snipe out with Epic Challenge.
  • 5th – Shawn Ford – Adeptus Custodes: Double big Custodian block.
  • 6th – Matthew Andrusiak – Ultramarines: Calgar and Bobby G leading up a volume shooting bonanza. of particular note is putting Calgar with a big Aggressor unit, which is an extremely scary combo that I think some people are sleeping on.
  • 7th – Michael Blanchet – Iron Hands: Apparently all Michael wants to do is unleash laser death, because we’ve got three RepExes and three Gladiator Landers here.
  • 8th – Sebastian Hebert – Chaos Daemons: Four big monsters (Be’lakor, Kairos, Bird, Shalaxi) and lots of sticky Pink Horror units in support.

Power Behind the Throne

34-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Moorabbin, Victoria AU on August 18 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Hammer and Anvil – Sites of Power – Scrambler Fields

Rhys Cunningham – Drukhari: Shooty Drukhari with shooty Harlequin friends.
Army List - Click to Expand

vs.

Boyd Morrall – Necrons: Double Lychguard and Doomsdays.
Army List - Click to Expand

Thoughts

This game is an odd one – the Necrons are fantastically better equipped to play the mission here, but the Drukhari list is fantastically better equipped to outshoot them. Realistically, that puts the ball in the Drukhari’s court to try and find a way to win, and I think their goal has to be twofold. First, accept that the Necrons are extremely likely to score 50VP on Primary. Stopping them between the super C’tan and double Lychguard on this mission just isn’t happening (though there is a degree to which the super C’tan is slightly weaker than normal thanks to Scrambler Fields). What the Drukhari need to do is pray for the second turn (for end game scoring) focus on ensuring they have an iron grip on at least one mid-board objective, presumably a flank one, and focus on denying Secondaries and Necron killing power as fast as possible.

Those Doomsdays are 99% going to lose the shooting match to all the horrors that the Drukhari have brought along, so over time they should build up a board presence advantage, and they need to work to leverage that into a substantial Secondary lead, and maybe stealing the Necrons home objective in the late stage of the game. They’ve got a decent number of hulls to put down, and need to do as much as possible to ensure that there’s nowhere for Hexmark Destroyers to drop, maximising the chances of the Necrons drawing a dead card and bleeding some Secondary points (whereas the Drukhari have so many good tools for objective play that a 40 should be priced in). Assuming they do have end-game scoring, that might just get them over the line.

The result…well the Drukhari clearly played a blinder, and I strongly suspect did get the second turn they wanted, but it looks like the heart of the cards was with the Necrons, as they managed a perfect 100VP to take the game.

Result

Necrons Victory – 100 – 98

Boyd Morrall – Necrons – 1st Place

Doomsday Ark
Doomsday Ark. Credit: Rockfish

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Sword and board Necrons

Thoughts

Nothing particularly complicated here, but very effective – three of the toughest anvil units in the game in the two Lychguard bricks and the super C’tan, nasty shooting from the Doomsdays and super-potent Lone Operative Hexmarks to finish. Definitely a fan of Zandrekh leading up the second Lychguard unit, as that helps unpick some of the stratagems people might slam to try and defeat this. Thanks to Boyd for providing a bit of skeletal undead light amidst the darkness.

The Best of the Rest

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

  • 2nd – Dylan Cowan – Aeldari: Go-wide shooting with Wraithguard.
  • 3rd – Rhys Cunningham – Drukhari: Go-wide shooting, augmenting the usual toys with a couple of Travelling Players Voidweavers.
  • 4th – Terence Drew – Deathwatch: Proteus Teams and Gladiators
  • 5th – Ben Zagami – Necrons: Lychguard/Warrior blocks plus Doomsdays.
  • 6th – Lachlan Booth – Aeldari: Wraithknight + go-wide.

TLM x Layton Midnight Melee GT

28-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Altamonte Springs, FL United States on August 19 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Adam Raymond – Aeldari – 1st Place

Avatar of Khaine. Credit: Jack Hunter

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Crunchy Aeldari

Final Round Matchup

100 – 30 Victory against Matt Mann – Imperial Knights.

Thoughts

I assume the list title here refers to the minimal number of models this list has, and also presumably the fact that it’ll wrap up most games in an hour, giving plenty of rest and relaxation time. Congratulations to Adam.

The Best of the Rest

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

  • 2nd – Mike Muzeni – Adeptus Custodes: A fairly go-wide take on Infantry Custodes, squeezing in five separate 5/6-model units.
  • 3rd – Matt Mann – Imperial Knights: Triple big Knights, adding an Atrapos to the standard Crusader/Warden combo. Quite funny to try and fish for a kill on Overwatch against a Wraithknight, if you can get the Bondsman effect up. Give that Wraithknight a taste of its own medicine.
  • 4th – Kameron Calabro – Adeptus Custodes: Two big Custodes bricks and a smaller squad in a Land Raider.
  • 5th – Jon Sweet – Black Templars: To close us out, the Emperor’s most beautiful meme list – a mighty fifteen bodyguardless Characters, mostly riding into battle in a Land Raider Crusader. Going 4-1 with this an absolute champion move.

Wrap Up

Imagine I’m Adam Driver slamming a wall, complaining about how every day it’s just Aeldari after Aeldari. I’m going to cleanse my pallate this weekend by playing a bunch of games with a spicy new Necron list, so wherever you are in the world, I hope you’ve got similarly exciting things coming up.

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