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Competitive Innovations in 10th: Slain by an Elf

By James "One_Wing" Grover

OK so the good news first – a reasonable number of TOs have rushed to adopt last week’s balance changes, so this week’s results are somewhat less elf-oriented. Only somewhat though – between a mixture of some events not updating, and Aeldari still being extremely good there’s still a substantial amount of elf nonsense afoot, just more showings from everyone else too. Let’s take a little look, shall we.

Today we’ll be covering:

  • TGX Warhammer 40K (major)
  • The Salt City GT 2023 Warhammer 40K (major)
  • Hee Yaw Grand Tournament
  • The Warhound GT at Game Grid in July
  • Capital City Clash 40k Gt
  • IV GT Coliseum Murciano
  • The Deck Box Masters Grand Tournament

With a substantially greater variety in showdowns, democracy has also returned. Only two this week, because I’m flying out to Tacoma for the US Open on Wednesday, but they are:

  • Thousand Sons vs Thousand Sons at the Hee Yaw Grand Tournament.
  • Necrons vs Imperial Knights at IV GT Coliseum Murciano

Let’s go!

TGX Warhammer 40k Tournament

86-player, 6-round Grand Tournament in Mississauga, ON CA on July 08 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

This event was using the balance changes.

Tim Deetlefs – Aeldari – 1st Place

Credit: Wings

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Shooty Null Deploy Eldar

Final Round Matchup

87 – 76 Victory against Nick Jagiello – Necrons.

Thoughts

Immediately very happy with the prediction of “still the best, not by as much” if I’m honest. As the final round shows, the best Aeldari lists now give much closer games, and certainly can be beaten, but the sheer power of their Index is still brutal – this list is down nearly 300pts from what it would have been last week, and still took down a major. It also highlights the depth of tricks available to Aeldari via it’s ability to near null-deploy against Towering shooty builds, aiming to ensure the first big punch happens on its terms. Prince Yriel being able to pull three additional units into Strategic Reserves means that you can end up with very little on the table other than Lone Operatives to bank some points from the home objective, and although you probably score low early from doing that, there’s almost nothing that can win a shooting race against this when it gets the first swing at full power. An impressive new angle from Tim there, and congratulations on the win.

Nick Jagiello – Necrons – 2nd Place

Necron Hexmark Destroyer
Necron Hexmark Destroyer. Credit: Pendulin

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Lychguard and Hexmarks

Thoughts

Hell yeah that’s what we want to see. Lychguard blocks with a Technomancer and Thralls are truly monstrous things to try and deal with, as is the Sempiternal Weave Transcendant, allowing this build to tank even the most violent onslaughts. Packing three Hexmark Destroyers adds insult to injury on that front, two of them ready to punish opponents for even having the temerity to try and cut down the gleaming phalanx, and a third providing a safe way to deploy the Sovereign Coronal for buffing the Destroyers. This army can quite legitimately just walk forward and demand opponents try to stop it, and most of the time they probably won’t, especially if they underestimate just how much punishment the big units can soak and split their fire.

The other interesting model to call out is Imotekh, who I was initially pretty low on, but have been warming to. When you have multiple big bricks you can’t use a regular Overlord’s ability on more than one, and Imotekh provides you with both a nice, all-round offensive profile and a steady flow of CP to power your stuff. That’s particularly good here, as I’m sort of assuming this list is planning to Rapid Ingress a Hexmark pretty much every game, so ensuring that you have a bounteous CP pool by turn two is vital.

Overall, huge fan of everything that’s going on here, well done to Nick on taking second.

Adam Houser – Genestealer Cult – 3rd Place

Cult of Sirens Aberrants. Credit: Lupe

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Horde and Hammers

Thoughts

Another strong showing for the already very familiar GSC setup here – a large horde of endlessly respawning infantry, able to launch brutal shooting assaults from reserves, backed by lots of nasty Characters and two big alpha units. Those comprise a big squad of bikes ready to do the Mortal Wound dance and an Aberrant brick ready to soak punishment and kill stuff with hammers. A very effective recipe, and a clear favourite to start racking up wins – with the only possible challenge being that it can struggle into Necrons, particularly on some deployment maps, and it was Nick’s robots who dealt the Cults their one loss here. Everyone else, however, couldn’t keep up with all the trickery that Adam was deploying here, and well done on third.

Éric Marcoux – Aeldari – 4th Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Shooty Eldar

Thoughts

Yet more indications that Aeldari are still hyper-potent, and Fire Prisms in particular are still extremely good at 150pts. The unit to note here is the Wraithguard – these are super strong for their cost, but were eclipsed by how cheap some other stuff was before. Now that the price differential between a unit of ten and a Wraithknight is rather larger, they become a very strong second big threat, as seen here. Congratulations Éric on rounding out the top four.

The Best of the Rest

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

  • 5th – Lucas Badgery – Tyranids: Massive monster mash with lots of big shooty bugs and Maleceptors.
  • 6th – Thomas Faulkner – Aeldari: Aeldari with three big haymakers – a Wraithknight, 10 Wraithguard and the Avatar.
  • 7th – Ridvan Martinez – Drukhari: Archon Skari unleashes a very mobile Drukhari force using lots of shooty boats with a unit of Talos as a slightly crunchier core, backed up by loads of Scourges out of reserve.
  • 8th – Zach Ahrens – Imperial Knights: Shooty-skewed triple bigs, with a pair of Crusaders and an Errant out front.
  • 9th – Joseph Miedema – Aeldari: Triple Prisms and a Wraithknight.

The Salt City GT 2023 Warhammer 40K

74-player, 7-round Major in Syracuse, NY US on July 07 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

This event was not using the balance changes.

Steven Crawley – Imperial Knights – 1st Place

Knight Crusader (Duchess Silas Magellan, Piloting the Auric Might) Credit: SRM

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Shooty Knights

Final Round Matchup

60 – 80 Loss against Chris martens – Aeldari. (no one finished this event undefeated)

Thoughts

Knight Crusader goes brrr. Results elsewhere indicate that Knights are still a credible threat post balance changes, but obviously this specific build will need to be retooled to account for them. Still, it was 3-1 against pre-nerf Aeldari over the course of the event, which is an extremely impressive feat from Steven!

Brad Chester – Aeldari – 2nd Place

Credit: Greg Narro

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Go-wide shooty Eldar

Thoughts

Speaking of pre-nerf Aeldari – this list is hyper-lethal and spread across so many units that it’s extremely difficult to efficiently take down. Steven’s Knights did manage it, but everyone else got blasted off the table. Well done Brad.

Chris Martens – Aeldari – 3rd Place

Wraithknight. Credit: Rockfish
Wraithknight. Credit: Rockfish

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Shooty Aeldari

Thoughts

Chris got in on the Wraithguard tech early here (Fate’s Messenger is quite the thing on them) to strong effect, but otherwise this is another showcase of just how much violence pre-nerf Aeldari could muster.

Sam Bouabane – Aeldari – 4th Place

Credit: Greg Narro

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Shooty Aeldari

Thoughts

Ten Wraithguard and two Wraithknights. Good lord.

The Best of the Rest

There was 1 more players on a 6-1 record. This was:

  • 5th – Cullen Burns – Aeldari: Triple Prism, Triple Spinner, loads of Warp Spiders.

Hee Yaw Grand Tournament

48-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Killeen, TX United States on July 08 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

This event was using the balance changes.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission – Hammer and Anvil/Supply Drop/Sweep and Clear/Supply Lines (Maelstrom double Mission Rule)

Matthew Allee – Thousand Sons: Magnus and the boys with Scarabs and a Vortex Beast
Army List - Click to Expand

vs.

David Hall – Thousand Sons: Magnus and slightly fewer boys, but with two Vortex Beasts
Army List - Click to Expand

Thoughts

I am going to assume this is taking place deep within the twisted confines of Magnus’ mind palace, particularly given the mission is a full on double-dip chaos mode. Presumably he’s trying to decide what to have for lunch or something. Anyway, whenever the Goonhammer patrons vote for me to do a mirror match I cross my fingers that there’s at least some difference between the two builds to grab onto, and luckily here there is. Matthew has gone for an extra Character and a few more Rubricae, while David’s gone for more brutality from a second Vortex Beast. Both extremely credible choices (because good lord the Vortex Beast is a nasty datasheet), but which comes out on top?

Could go either way, honestly, and different elements of the mission pull in each direction. I think Hammer and Anvil favours the Vortex Beasts, as the more numerous list Matthew is packing can’t take advantage of its wider board coverage as much as on some maps. However, the Supply Drop scoring means that if the larger force can blunt the initial Vortex assault it’ll be able to take advantage as the game goes on, and it will also benefit from a deeper pool of Cabal Points into the mid-late game. I think there’s a version of this game where they stumble in the face of the initial pressure that gets mounted, and can’t break into the game, but the pool of tricks available to them is deep enough that they should be able to find a route to victory, and that appears to be what happened.

Result

Thousand Sons Victory (Matthew) – 69 – 31

Matthew Allee – Thousand Sons – 1st Place

Magnus the Red. Credit: Colin Ward

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Magnus and the boys

Thoughts

Another clear favourite to challenge for the top spots in a post-balance world. This list combines reasonably good durability with some incredible power pieces, and backs it all up with a huge pool of Cabal points to do terrible things to unwitting opponents. Or witting ones, honestly. Magnus isn’t super picky, except about lunch. Well done Matthew, and everyone else make sure to read up on what this build can do, you’ll be seeing plenty of it.

The Best of the Rest

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

  • 2nd – Samuel Cook – Aeldari: Triple Prisms, Triple Spinners, still good at +165pts apparently.
  • 3rd – Noah Pope – Aeldari: Yncarne, Wraithknight, big Wraithguard brick.
  • 4th – Justin Phillips – Thousand Sons: Magnus and his boys, backed up by some fairly hefty shooting from Forgefiends and Annihilators.
  • 5th – Joseph Snyder – Black Templars: Serious style points here for running as actual Righteous Crusaders, with the dynamic due of Helbrecht and Grimaldus leading a warhost containing a full Primaris Crusader block, lots of Redemptors and some Sternguard.
  • 6th – Will Davis – Necrons: A buffed-up block of Lychguard anchoring some shooty backfield toys and a pair of C’tan, including the extremely hateful Sempiternal Weave Transcendent.
  • 7th – David Hall – Thousand Sons: Magnus and the boys with a pair of Mutaliths and a full Scarab block.
  • 8th – Bryan Brooks – Genestealer Cult: Neophyte horde with the big unit each of Jackals and Aberrants backing them, plus a squad of Genestealers for early mauling.
  • 9th – James Miller – Adepta Sororitas: A bit of everything on show here, a real all-rounder build with Repentia as melee hammers, various tanks and gun-totings Sisters for shooting, and some powerful heroes in the form of Junith (presumably leading the Sacresant unit) and the Triumph. Made it to 4-0 before falling to Thousand Sons, so definitely worth Sororitas fans checking out.

The Warhound GT at Game Grid in July

43-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Lehi, UT US on July 08 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

This event did not use the balance changes.

Chase Chappell – Ynnari – 1st Place

The Visarch
Credit: Alfredo Ramirez

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Ynnai

Final Round Matchup

63 – 18 Victory against Chris Johnson – Tyranids.

Thoughts

Another list that’s jumping ahead – I expect to see a lot more tinkering with Ynnari after the balance updates, but well known Ynnari fan Chase is already out here winning with them. The sell here is broadly what I expect to draw people to Ynnari – cheap Drukhari infantry and transports are a great addition to the overall Aeldari recipe, providing a mix of inexpensive board control and Darklight shots that benefit massively from the detachment. Bringing in a big Kabalite squad from strategic reserves and using Bladestorm on them is also extremely real into some armies. All delightful fun and games that I’m sure everyone is going to learn a lot more about in the near future, for now congratulations Chase.

The Best of the Rest

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

  • 2nd – Chris Johnson – Tyranids: A mix of board control from cheap Gargoyles and some Leapers, shooting from Zoanthropes, and big pressure from some big bugs.
  • 3rd – Derek Holder – Adeptus Custodes: Caladius Tanks and two buffed-up Warden blocks.
  • 4th – Grant Eklund – Aeldari: Wraithknight, Triple Prism, big Wraithguard unit etc.
  • 5th – David Johansen – Aeldari: Triple Wraithknight.
  • 6th – Nicolas Wenker – Chaos Daemons: Monster mash centred around Be’lakor, Shalaxi and a Bloodthirster, with various utility toys and board control in support. Includes a unit of Plaguebearers with the Bilepiper among the latter, which is definitely a good way to give opponents headaches when planning to take objectives.
  • 7th – Antonius Tolman – Adeptus Custodes: Triple Caladius and double Wardens.
  • 8th – Scott Rumple – Imperial Knights: Canis, Castellan, Crusader, truly a horrifying engine of shooty murder.

Capital City Clash 40k Gt

39-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Tallahassee, Florida US on July 08 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

This event did not use the balance changes.

Nick Nanavati – Genestealer Cult – 1st Place

Neophytes. Credit: Rockfish
Neophytes. Credit: Rockfish

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

No-bike Cult

Final Round Matchup

88 – 52 Victory against Hogan Franklin – Genestealer Cult.

Thoughts

Genestealer Cults are good again, so of course Nick is out and about winning tournaments – that’s just how it works. His spin on the cults eschews the bike trickery in favour of even more horde and the full three Ridgerunners to hide behind walls and tee up Crossfire with Mortar shots. Extremely effective into opponents already reeling from Infiltrating Aberrants, and earns Nick his first event win of what will, let’s be honest, be many in 10th Edition.

Jason Watts – Dark Angels – 2nd Place

Credit: Robert “TheChirurgeon” Jones

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Shooty Dark Angels

Thoughts

Sporting the most powerful unique Datasheets, Dark Angels are firmly back into the position that our extremely objective and unbiased editorial policy believes they deserve – Marines++. The Lion is an absolute monster, and Deathwing Knights with a Terminator Chaplain are an astoundingly nasty brawler piece. All this is obviously excellent backed with Desolation squads too, but there are plenty of other shooty toys Marines can try now these have gone up in points. Among those, as this list shows, are Hellblasters, who are a pretty serious shooty threat now, particularly great into mirrors or Thousand Sons. It also showcases that the Thunderfire Cannon is once more a strong unit, with the easily-applied move debuff causing big headaches for some armies (I’ve faced one with my Necrons, would not recommend). Dark Angels and Deathwatch definitely look like faves to establish themselves as the Marines of choice right now, and congratulations to Jason for getting to scoreboard one for the Unforgiven.

The Best of the Rest

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

  • 3rd – Hogan Franklin – Genestealer Cult: Horde with the Aberrant and Bike units in backup, plus a couple of Mortar Ridgerunners to line things up.
  • 4th – Jeremy Stan – Adeptus Custodes: Full central Custodian brick, two Caladius tanks and two Warden bricks in support.
  • 5th – Teddy Woody – Aeldari: Yncarne, Night Spinners, Wraithknights.
  • 6th – Robert Birmingham – Aeldari: Triple Prism, lots of Spiders, Wraithknight.
  • 7th – Mark Perry – Space Marines: Mobile Marines wearing the livery of the Raven Guard, featuring lots of jump pack and Phobos units, Shrike to lead one squad to war, and Desolation Marines as shooty backup.

IV GT Coliseum Murciano

37-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Murcia, MC España on July 08 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

This event was using the balance changes.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission – Unknown

OuX ™ – Imperial Knights: Post-balance shooty Knights with a Castellan.
Army List - Click to Expand

vs.

Daniel SSotano – Necrons: Double Lychguard and shooting.
Army List - Click to Expand

Thoughts

Lychguard bricks are tough, but if anything is going to be able to take them down it’s Knights. OuX has taken one of the routes that looked promising after the nerf – pivot to a Castellan, since although they’re pricy, their relatively more attractive now that other big Knights went up. They also, of course, have some of the wildest shooting in the business, and alongside a Crusader can make decent work of what the Necrons have here, at least assuming that they don’t get blasted. The Necrons have brought some big guns of their own, and while they probably won’t win a protracted gunfight, they certainly have a shot at dropping a big Knight, which is very much in their favour.

As the Necrons here, I think the play is plausibly to go ahead and reserve both Doomsdays – while it means you don’t get to alpha strike if you win the rolloff, that’s less guaranteed to go well for them than the Knights fully unloading into the Doomsdays will from the other direction, whereas the Lychguard bricks and C’tan can happily roll with a turn of being shot out the gate if they have to. That allows concentrating everything on dropping a big Knight when stuff arrives turn two, aiming to either put one down or at least tee it up to die turn three (Protocol of the Hungry Void is great for allowing Lychguard to handle T12 stuff), allowing the Necrons to last throughout the game (as I do think they’ll eventually run dry if both Knights stay up). From the scoreline, my guess is that a big Knight going down took too long – the Necrons put up a strong score, but the Knights just about edged their way to victory.

Result

Imperial Knights Victory – 84 – 76

OuX ™ – Imperial Knights – 1st Place

Imperial Knight Castellan
Imperial Knight Castellan. Credit: Jack Hunter

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Shooty Knights

Thoughts

I’ll admit I was just a hint worried that the Knight nerfs went a little too far (certainly relative to Aeldari), but apparently I shouldn’t have been – while reduced in numbers on the table, the power that big Knights can unleash is still of tournement-winning calibre, especially when going full shooty as OuX has here. Congratulations on continuing a glorious run for the Questoris!

The Best of the Rest

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

  • 2nd (4.5-0.5) – Fernando Pérez – Necrons: Two big, buffed up Lychguard units holding down the fort for a tonne of Lokhusts and Doomsdays to blast stuff.
  • 3rd – Angel C4KILLER – Thousand Sons: Magnus and the boys with double Mutaliths and some Scarabs, plus the Changeling sneaking in to chill on an objective.
  • 4th – Daniel SSotano – Necrons: Double Lychguard with shooty and Sempiternal C’tan backup.
  • 5th – Dadu Polo – Aeldari: Prisms, Spinners and a Wraithknight, just in more reasonable numbers than previously.
  • 6th – Husa Lord Six – Imperial Knights: Knights skewing big, going for a Castellan, Crusader and Paladin.

The Deck Box Masters Grand Tournament (10th Edition)

34-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Halifax, NS CA on July 08 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

This event was using the balance changes.

Jonathon Betteridge – Asuryani – 1st Place

Credit: Keewa

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Double Avatar Aeldari

Final Round Matchup

100 – 33 Victory against Keenan Elliot – Imperial Knights.

Thoughts

We end as we begun – with an Aeldari list sweeping up a post-balance event. This essentially substitutes in the Avatar for a Wraithknight and the Prism hike compared to some of the pre-nerf builds, and crafts something that’s still ultra-potent. The firepower from all the small shooty threats packing re-rolls combined with the threat of the Yncarne popping up if you kill them is ultra strong, and all it needs is some gigantic anchor to thrive – something the Avatar is more than able to provide. Congratulations Jonathon!

The Best of the Rest

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

  • 2nd – Nathan Chow – Genestealer Cult: Horde with the Aberrant/Jackal/Purestrain backup.
  • 3rd – Todd Deagle – Orks: Ladz in Kanz. Mozrog, Ghaz and a second Squigboss too, lots of hefty stuff.
  • 4th – Nate Quig – Adeptus Custodes: A slightly more go-wide Custodes spin, going for small units of Guard, Allarus and Wardens with a couple of Caladius and a couple of Assassins supporting.
  • 5th – Keenan Elliot – Imperial Knights: Crusader/Warden with lots of Armigers and an Assassin supporting.
  • 6th – Matthew Reeson – Necrons: Void Dragon and two units of Heavy Destroyers behind a big unit each of Warriors and Lychguard.

Wrap Up

OK, done with the preliminaries – this weekend we’ve got our first supermajor for 10th at Tacoma, so lets see what builds people have up their sleeves for that. I will (unusually for a US event) see you there, since as you read this I am likely on a plane over the Atlantic heading to the Open. Very excited, both to play in a massive 10E event and to meet lots of US fans!

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