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Competitive Innovations in 10th: The Dark Is Rising pt.1

By James "One_Wing" Grover

Ancient foes continue to clash near the top of the metagame, as various Chaos forces attempt to execute a multi-pronged attack on Aeldari dominance. The Aeldari are still just about on top, but the gap is narrowing, especially as more people switch to Chaos Space Marines and the best World Eaters players hit their stride. Space Marines haven’t been idle either, with various Dark Angels and Templars builds, particularly but not exclusively with Ironstorm Spearhead, make some waves. Plenty to talk about, more codexes presumably coming fairly soon, and some big events like the World Championship of Warhammer and the final two UKTC supermajors getting closer. The rest of the year is going to be firing on all cylinders and we’ll be here to cover it as always.

Today I’ll be looking at:

  • Raccoon Rumble 2023: WH40K
  • MID-MO Maelstrom
  • Flames of Autumn 2023
  • Hobart GT 2023
  • OP’s V Is For Volkite GT
  • Other Realms Final Stand Grand Tournament

On Wednesday we’ll have Lowest of Men covering:

  • The California Cup ’23
  • Atomic City Warzone
  • PCG Hosts the Lightly Salted Fall GT
  • The Hogtowner 2023
  • BOLTERCON GT 2023

Our showdowns, as voted for by the Goonhammer Patrons are going to be:

  • Stormlance Space Wolves vs. Chaos Daemons at the Other Realms Final Stand GT.
  • Astra Militarum (complete with a BIG TANK) vs. World Eaters at the Hogtowner.

In addition to this, my spy network now spans the globe, and we have some player-provided thoughts from the top table of the Hobart GT as well.

On that note, and I should re-emphasise that this is very welcome – if you won an event or were thwarted at the last in a top table showdown, you can email us at contact@goonhammer.com with your thoughts, and if we get them before Tuesday evening UK time we’ll do our best to include them.

Raccoon Rumble 2023: WH40K

170-player, 6-round Grand Tournament in Hof, BY, Germany on November 03 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Matthias Bellmann – Aeldari (Battle Host) – 1st Place

Fire Dragons. Credit: James “Boon” Kelling

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Spinners and Wraithguard

Final Round Matchup

17 – 3 Victory against Kevin Zöllinger – Black Templars (Ironstorm Spearhead).

Thoughts

Exhibit A of Aeldari still being on top here, this is mostly the standard Aeldari loadout, with the only major diversion being the extra squad of footslogging Fire Dragons. I’d guess these are probably just an extra missile to bring in out of Strategic Reserves in most games as the number of vehicles in the metagame increases, as it’s pretty easy to straight trade them up against Marines (and they’re not bad at counter-punching enemy Avatars, Yncarnes and C’tans because of how melta modifiers apply). Given that Matthias finished up with a healthy win against Ironstorm Templars, I’d say that’s a pretty sharp meta call, congratulations!

Max Kanter – Orks (Waaagh! Tribe) – 2nd Place (Undefeated)

Credit: Tom Alexander

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Aggro Orks

Thoughts

Go fast and krump things. Simple, enduringly popular and extremely effective. Worth noting that Ghaz’s popularity is very much on the rise, again presumably because he helps the army punch up into hull-heavy lists, both via handing Lethal Hits out to a bunch of Boyz and via being able to rip one to pieces personally. In addition, this list has such spectacular threat saturation that opponents are going to be hard pressed to justify shooting him early, given the risk of bouncing off his invuln, helping him get into the fray. Congratulations to Max for speedbossing in style.

Manuel Wayand – Chaos Space Marines (Slaves to Darkness) – 3rd Place (Undefeated)

Chaos Space Marines Obliterators
Chaos Space Marines Obliterators. Credits: That Gobbo

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Brawler Goodstuff

Thoughts

An example of the ascendant threat as our final undefeated build here, this formula of Chosen and Warp Talons to brawl backed by Forgefiends and Obliterators for dakka is consistently taking top finishes. There’s plenty of room for tweaking round the edges – anywhere between zero and two Accursed Communes is common, exactly how much shooting gets taken varies, as does the presence of Abaddon and Daemons. This version goes for the option of going heavy on shooting and a bit wider at the cost of not taking Abaddon and only having one Commune, and looks pretty terrifying. It also has the unusual choice of a Chaos Sorcerer, which I assume is mostly here because there weren’t quite the points for another Lord, but I guess does provide a bit more value if one of the Chosen units needs to hang back from the enemy for a bit. Always nice to see a rarer pick among the regulars though (particularly when I have to write about similar lists a lot). Well done to Manuel.

Kevin Zöllinger – Black Templars (Ironstorm Spearhead) – 4th Place

Black Templar Impulsor armed with a multi-melta
Black Templar Impulsor. Credit: Jack Hunter

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Templar Hull Spam

Thoughts

Getting a bargain-priced extra multi-melta is pretty good when your army gives every unit a free re-roll. Stay tuned to Goonhammer for more Hot Strategy Tips. That asset makes Templars one of the best ways to run Ironstorm, and this build pushes it to the extreme, running the bare minimum of stuff to populate the Impulsors (Techmarines in two, Hellblasters in the others) adding two paltry units of scouts for screening, then letting dakka carry the day from there. The result is fairly terrifying to behold, and only fell to the mighty Aeldari in the finals, so great work from Kevin taking the list to the top table.

The Best of the Rest

There were 11 more players on 5-1 records. They were:

  • 5th – Grischa Gerwert  – Chaos Space Marines: Brawler Goodstuff with double Commune.
  • 6th – Arne Zerndt  – Aeldari: Spinners and Wraithguard, with a small unit of Wraithblades as an extra anvil.
  • 7th – Christopher Schade  – Thousand Sons:  Rubrics and Characters.
  • 8th – Nader Chamma  – Grey Knights: Go-wide infantry with the big Purifier block.
  • 9th – Christian Breuer  – Thousand Sons: Rubrics and Characters and the Changeling too!
  • 10th – Pascal Haberstroh  – Adeptus Astartes (Ironstorm Spearhead): Dreadnoughts, Gladiators and Whirlwinds.
  • 11th – Lars Weigl  – Chaos Space Marines: mostly melee pressure, but cutting a lot of the Shooting to go for full blocks of Chosen, including one in a Land Raider with Fabius Bile.
  • 12th – Patrick Nemitz  – Black Templars (Righteous Crusaders): Two massive Primaris Crusader units screening Gladiators and Redemptors.
  • 13th – Tobias Wolf  – Tyranids (Invasion Fleet):  Monster mash with lots of small objective units and Neurolictors in support.
  • 14th – Artur Güttler  – T’au Empire: Mechanised Tau with some Breacherfish and Hammerheads alongside a big Crisis block and the usual array of cheap hulls.
  • 15th – Christian Müller  – Aeldari: Infantry-heavy Aeldari, packing full units of Warp Spiders and Harlequins alongside some of the usual suspects and some Skyweaver MSUs.

MID-MO Maelstrom

57-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Ashland, MO, United States on November 04 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Kyle Lamperez – Dark Angels (Ironstorm Spearhead) – 1st Place

Azrael. Credit: Rockfish
Azrael. Credit: Rockfish

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Dark Ironstorm

Final Round Matchup

91 – 85 Victory against Kyle McCord – Astra Militarum (Combined Regiment).

Thoughts

…and here we have the other Ironstorm Chapter of choice in Dark Angels. The two reasons to go for the Unforgiven are either access to Azrael (keeping Command Points flowing at a fairly low price) or for a Darkshroud to help protect all the tanks. Azrael’s the pick here, alongside a second flex choice of a Land Raider Redeemer filled with Assault Intercessors, both parts of which feel like a decent way of projecting counterplay threat into the popular Chaos builds, either through Overwatch or the Assault Int’s ability to rip hordes apart. The option to sacrifice a CP early game and stick Azrael with them to be extra sticky (via the Lion Helm) also feels pretty good! We love seeing Big Azrael winning, so good job Kyle.

Ryan Verbeck – Tyranids (Vanguard Onslaught) – 2nd Place (Undefeated)

Genestealers
Genestealers. Credit: Pendulin

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Vanguard Genestealer Spam

Thoughts

Hell yeah the hype is real. Genestealers have struggled to find a home since their heyday with the 8th Edition Tyranid book, but it looks like Vanguard finally gives them some legs again. They already have enough arms. The ability to slam lots of them into the enemy at speed squeezes the maximum value out of the additional durability the new edition has given them, and putting the opponent on the back foot out of the gate works super well with the Vanguard’s array of tricks and fantastic scoring potential. If the opponent is reeling early on they risk falling behind on scoring, and this army plays Fixed Secondaries super reliably, tilting the odds heavily in its favour unless the opponent can swat the early rush almost immediately. No one came particularly close, and Ryan racked up some big wins against a fairly broad range of challengers.

The Best of the Rest

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

  • 3rd – Jake Harris – Tyranids (Synaptic Nexus): Kind of a board flood thing going on here, presumably aiming to make the most of the Nexus’ 5+ Invuln mode, with a Norn Assimilator and a big unit of Raveners as the standout unusual choices.
  • 4th – Kyle McCord – Astra Militarum (Combined Regiment): Double Dorn.
  • 5th – Dan Sammons  – Adepta Sororitas: Arco-flagellant and tank spam.
  • 6th – Steve Boatwright  – Dark Angels (Ironstorm Spearhead): Invictors, Dreads and a Darkshroud.
  • 7th – Scott Thompson  – Adeptus Astartes (Ironstorm Spearhead): Dreads and Repexes, with the cute trick of sticking an MSU of Aggressors into each of the latter.
  • 8th – Brent Simon  – Aeldari: Spinners and Wraithguard.
  • 9th – Isaiah Norton  – Black Templars (Righteous Crusaders): Primaris Crusaders plus a Redeemer party bus loaded with Primaris Sword Brethren.

Flames of Autumn 2023

46-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Westminster, Maryland, US on November 04 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Mark Hertel – Ultramarines (Gladius Task Force) – 1st Place

Ultramarines Land Raider Crusader
Ultramarines Land Raider Crusader. Credit: JD Reynolds

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Land Raider Spam

Final Round Matchup

84 – 59 Victory against Tyler Principio – Alpha Legion (Slaves to Darkness).

Thoughts

I am absolutely hooting and hollering over here. Land Raider spam. Land Raider spam. There has not been any previous point since the start of 8th where that has been even slightly a good idea, but here it is winning an event. In all seriousness, this build does pull off a classic skew build trick very effectively – the visible attack surface for opponents trying to engage it early on is extremely uniform (because it’s literally just Land Raiders and Lone Ops), so it massively devalues a lot of tools that they might have brought along. Each raider is also stuffed with tasty toys, two lethal close-engagement threats and the Centurions, who look pretty appealing at their new price (and importantly, don’t massively weaken the army’s average defensive profile when they offboard and start blasting. I can certainly imagine there being some armies that could have a go at boxing this in (though the Aggressors and Inceptors definitely help counter that plan) but Mark taking down the tournament with it shows there’s legitimately something here. Land Raider spam. Never thought I’d see the day.

The Best of the Rest

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

  • 2nd – Jeffrey Kolodner – Adepta Sororitas (Hallowed Martyrs): Infantry-heavy Sororitas, sticking to the formula he won the US Open with!
  • 3rd – Tyler Principio – Alpha Legion (Slaves to Darkness): Brawler Goodstuff with double Commune.
  • 4th – Matt Schuchman – Asuryani (Battle Host): Double Avatar.
  • 5th – Benjamin Milarch  – Chaos Space Marines: Infantry spam with a whole host of Legionaries, Chosen, Noise Marines and Raptors, with Fabius Bile making an appearence to lead one block.
  • 6th – Shaun Reynolds – Aeldari: Double Avatar and Wraithguard.
  • 7th – Matt Lorah  – Necrons: Canoptastic Necrons, packing Wraiths and lots of Tomb Sentinels alondside Destroyers and one big anchoring Lychguard brick.
  • 8th – Sascha Alexander Edelkraut  – Imperial Fists (Firestorm Assault Force): Go-wide Firestorm Infantry with lots of Gravis and two units of Assault Centurions.
  • 9th – Leigh Brady  – Necrons: Herohammer, taking the super C’tan, Silent King and a Catacomb barge, and backing them with two blocks of Lychguard.

Hobart GT 2023

45-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Hobart, TAS, AU on November 03 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Bumper size here, as we have player-supplied writeups for the Showdown and the second & third placed armies!

The Showdown

Scorched Earth – Chilling Rain – Sweeping Engagement

Liam Hogwood – Chaos Space Marines (Slaves to Darkness): Brawler goodstuff with Abaddon.
Army List - Click to Expand

vs.

Shannen Butters – Aeldari (Battle Host): Double Avatar plus hulls.
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Thoughts

As mentioned at the top, the players have been kind enough to send their thoughts in, so let’s hand over to them, starting with the Aeldari side of things.

Shannen: During list construction I tossed up between the Avatar, Triple Wraithspinners and a 10 Wraithguard block due to a combination of the terrain pack and local meta pressures. Eventually landing on the Avatar as it could bully the midfield, and free up phantasm as an option for the Phoenix gem Wayleaper.

Going into the matchup I knew Chaos Space Marines (CSM) have incredible trading potential, the MSU advantage and huge threat ranges with staging terrain. The Accursed Cultist blob was a problem, I expected it to dominate the middle, however it ended up on the flank, which I abandoned as a result.

Secondary choices were tough as his list didn’t give up any kill secondaries. Signals seemed too hard with the cultists. BEL (Behind Enemy Lines) could have been an option, but the Forgefiends had huge range and easy lanes of fire all the way down his deployment zone. I ended up going Tactical to present a less deniable gameplan and it seemed to work out nicely, with a well-timed redraw on Capture Enemy Outpost to prevent an early score deficit. Liam took Storm Hostile Objective and Deploy Teleport Homers with Storm ending up being a great pick. Homers also scored easily in my deployment zone as I lacked the resources to address his Nurglings performing the action.

During the game I managed to control the midfield with the Avatar for the majority of the game. I made some mistakes with the cultists and ended up killing too many, giving them back movement with respawns in both command phases. Fuegen went deep to kill Abaddon and threaten the Forgefiends. A huge charge from the Accursed Cultists nearly swung the game, scoring Storm Hostile and reducing my primary as he got onto my home objective. However, I had the clock time to consider my scoring options in turn 4, and positioned to give myself the best opportunity for scoring my next cards, and threaten Liams home objective, taking home the win.

It was an extremely close game, and many rolls of the dice could have completely changed the result.

Next up, from the Chaos side.

Liam:  During list construction I’d considered more Chosen, but they can get bogged down easy enough, leading me to include the more mobile Warp Talons with just enough punch to be a threat. The other challenge for the list is high toughness targets. Anything in the Index can get Lethal Hits from Dark Pacts, but the risk is you end up chasing for 6s, lacking a bit of reliability. This led me to include Abaddon as an absolute melee threat to take on units like the Avatars or Wraithguard, or even just helping to threaten Wardogs. He also combined well with the Accursed Cultists who act as an excellent OC bomb, with serious threat. If you keep them alive they can also basically own the late game, becoming untouchable as the opponent runs low on threats. They ended up being the MVP of my list, with a final Wardog kill count of 11, also scoring absolutely illegal primary swings.

The Matchup into Aeldari was going to be a tough one, especially as my matchup into the non-Wraithguard builds is worse, and I didn’t have paint score. But the plan was simple. Leverage the Accursed Cultists to score me 10pts a turn on Primaries and my opponent’s lack of means to remove them. Deploy Homers scores an easy 16+ on this deployment. Then Storm Hostile Objective, to combo with the plan to try and strangle out the Primary game.

Getting the first turn had pluses and minuses. On the upside, it let me manoeuvre my cultists before they got their movement restricted by the Nightspinner, while also getting the easy turn one Homers. However, it did also mean that Aeldari would have a good chance to come back later on with the final turn of primaries. My opponent’s first turn was fairly spooky, getting the Yncarne into the midst of my army, but with the combined shooting power of 2 Forgefiends and Abbadon, we took her down.

Turn two was quite a good turn for me, picking off both squads of Spiders and nearly both Walkers, massively reducing his unit count. The hit back was rough though, losing me both Chosen units and Abbadon

I was in a good position, but made a major mistake during turn 3, choosing to raze my safe objective this turn, instead of aiming to burn the centre one next turn. This was ultimately what cost me the game, as it would have scored me another 5 and denied him 5 more in the final turn. The rest of the turn and game was mainly manoeuvring to score storm and attempt to deny primaries where possible but falling just short.

Thanks to both players for sending that in, and some interesting stuff to unpack. I think Liam’s point about going for the more mobile Talons over more chosen when on a lower unit count version of the build is worth paying attention to, and I’m wryly amused that being over-enthusiastic in burning an objective swung the game – I also ran into the experience of realising too late that burning the objective was going to make things worse, not better!

Result

Aeldari (Battle Host) Victory – 71 – 66

Shannen Butters – Aeldari (Battle Host) – 1st Place

Avatar of Khaine. Credit: Rockfish
Avatar of Khaine. Credit: Rockfish

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Double Avatar

Final Round Matchup

71 – 66 Victory against Liam Hogwood – Chaos Space Marines (Slaves to Darkness).

Thoughts

Yeah you all know how this works by now. Avatars – very keen. Night Spinners – very mean. Aspect Warriors – very lean. Not sure that entirely works as a line, but we’re running with it. Well done Liam.

Adam Douglas – Orks – 2nd Place (4.5-0.5)

Ork Squighog Boyz. Credit: Magos Sockbert
Ork Squighog Boyz. Credit: Magos Sockbert

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Final Round Matchup

Thoughts

Adam: The melee friendly heavy terrain setup was the primary factor for my list construction. The oft-neglected in 10th Ghazghkull Thraka was my centerpiece, something I only consider on dense boards. Elsewhere, I don’t consider him viable outside of the use of a Battlewagon which I didn’t want to spend the points on.

The list isn’t designed with as many drops as your typical MSU Orks lists, its designed to consistently score Turns 1 and 2 via Stormboyz, Trukks and Hogs. Your opponent has to really commit to clear the Hogs, making them perfect for objective grabbing over say Warbikers which are cheaper and flimsier. The Waaagh is designed to be called Turn 3 to devastating effect but can and will be called Turn 2 if the opponent is putting on too much pressure. With Makari’s Lethal Hits aura, once the Waaagh is called, the effect is devastating particularly when paired with the Unbridled Carnage stratagem on units like Beast Snagga Boyz.

MVP for the weekend went to Ghaz, his AP3 and Flat 4 damage profile shone into a field littered with Wardogs and Marines. While I’m confident he doesn’t get that award on lighter boards, I’m glad I got to get him off the shelf as he’s a favourite of every Orks player.

Wings: Thanks Adam – useful to get the insight into why Ghaz came out, because it’s fair to say I’ve been getting very mixed messages from Ork players as to whether he’s good or not.

Ethan Armstrong – Salamanders (Firestorm Assault Force) – 3rd Place

Ballistus Dreadnought. Credit: Rockfish
Ballistus Dreadnought. Credit: Rockfish

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Toasty Salamanders

Thoughts

More Land Raiders, and a properly fiery Salamanders list in general. Let’s see what they got up to…

Ethan: Our local meta has some oddities between terrain and the lists commonly taken to events, with many people teching against high damage anti-vehicle shooting so I opted to essentially take as many flamers as inhumanely possible, trusting with the new Immolation protocols stratagem I’d have the output to deal with whatever came my way.

The list is relatively straightforward between double land-raiders and the double 6 blocks of Eradicators and Aggressors. The sauce really is the Hailstrike which, even post nerf, takes the flamers from reliably murdering almost anything to murdering absolutely anything (except cars, thanks Erads). The double Dreads came from the list’s gameplan of threat saturation, sacrificing common scoring pieces like inceptors and scouts (mainly on account of not owning any) in favour of betting that almost nothing has the tools to deal with 4 T10+, 2+ save pieces moving up the midboard behind very dense terrain.

Over the course of the event I took Tactical 3 times and Fixed twice, regretting fixed on one of those occasions. Giving the opponent a clear gameplan is a tough ask when the list is so short of scoring pieces though, given no opponent I played on the weekend gave up significant kill secondaries, this is still worth full consideration in future events. The list does do tactical surprisingly well, infiltrators providing flexibility to often do what’s required in tandem with strategic reserves as the core of the list plays primary exceptionally well, killing off the opponent’s resources fast and hard with great overwatch threat.

Great list to play, great fun with the double redeemer and definitely worth further exploring!

The Best of the Rest

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

  • 4th – James Hancock – Chaos Knights (Traitoris Lance): War Dogs with a couple of Beasts of Nurgle along for the ride.
  • 5th – Alex B  – Tyranids (Synaptic Nexus): Zoanthrope spam, also packing Neurolictors, Maleceptors and one full melee Warrior unit.
  • 6th – Liam Hogwood  – Chaos Space Marines: Brawler Goodstuff with Abaddon, and making one of the Warp Talon units a full ten.
  • 7th – Tyler Walsh  – Chaos Space Marines: Brawler Goodstuff adding a unit of Possessed.
  • 8th – Ben Wiedman – Thousand Sons: A blast from the pre-dataslate past, sticking to the old school Scarab/Magnus/Mutalith plan, and adding a Maulerfiend for even more mele crunch.

OP’s V Is For Volkite GT

40-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Santa Rosa, CA, US on November 04 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Scott Toebe – Death Guard (Plague Company) – 1st Place

Credit: Robert “TheChirurgeon” Jones

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Mechanised Death Guard

Final Round Matchup

85 – 45 Victory against Adam Dye – Chaos Space Marines (Slaves to Darkness).

Thoughts

Definite curveball here, Mortarion and all his clankiest friends putting in a win, and positively smashing the broader forces of Chaos in the final. Blight Haulers are the notable novelty here, and feel like another unit that’s increasingly relevant thanks to the Ironstorm Spearhead – they’re pretty good tank hunters, work pretty well with Mortarion’s auras, and spread your own threats much more widely, making it harder for other shooty lists to quickly de-fang your forces. They also combine with the Drones and Mortarion to make this list surprisingly speedy for the Death Guard, helping envelop the enemy in juicy Contagion range on the double. Pleasingly different from the norm and good to see some of the non-Terminator/Plague Marine/Plagueburst toys get an outing, great stuff from Scott.

The Best of the Rest

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

  • 2nd – Adam Dye – Chaos Space Marines (Slaves to Darkness): Gunline going for the full triple Forgefiend, Abaddon and some Warpsmiths.
  • 3rd – Owen Bissell – Blood Angels (Sons of Sanguinius): Actual honest to Sanguinius Blood Angels, going for Lemartes and Dante leading massive spearheads of their favoured flying followers, plus Mephiston with a full Assault Intercessor Squad.
  • 4th – Taylor Davis – World Eaters (Berzerker Warband): Invocatus, Angron and lots of Eightbound, plus a few supporting Jakhals and Berzerkers.
  • 5th – Brian Leyva  – Aeldari: Extreme elf herohammer, with double Avatar, a bunch of solo Characters, a big brick of Wraithguard and not much else!
  • 6th – Marcus Utsey  – Chaos Space Marines: Brawler Goodstuff with an eclectic mix of extra Daemon engines.
  • 7th – Jake Nelson  – Dark Angels (Ironstorm Spearhead): Dreadnoughts, Lancers, a Darkshroud and a bunch of Talonmasters.

Other Realms Final Stand Grand Tournament

28-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Honolulu, HI, US on November 04 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

I sit upon my dark, rainy island and look over at the people playing Warhammer in Hawaii and positively seethe with jealously. God I wish that was me.

The Showdown

Unknown Mission

Kaleo Anderson – Space Wolves (Stormlance Task Force): Full Stormlance energy – max Thunderwolf Cavalry with some spicy Characters and Logan Grimnar on his santa sled at the helm.
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vs.

Trevor Wylie – Chaos Daemons (Daemonic Incursion): Ultra-hefty monster mash with Skarbrand, Shalaxi and Be’lakor.
Army List - Click to Expand

Thoughts

We’ve seen a few Stormlance Wolf lists go past already, but this one goes harder than any before it. Not only do we see a maxed-out ThunderCav quotient, bringing two Battle Leaders for extra pressure and two of the Epic Hero leaders to adapt to various target types, Kaleo has also brought Logan’s sled, a unit that has really struggled to find a niche in the modern era. I’m guessing that being able to slap -1 to Hit and Wound onto Logan if the opponent tries to alpha him via Ride Fast, Ride Hard helps with that, and getting some extra CP when he ganks someone and a turn of absolutely brutal alpha striking is definitely relevant once you can protect him. I definitely like how this build combines its speedy ultra aggro stuff with lots of Phobos Marines and Assassins to pick up points while the pressure is on too, and I think the option of sticking a Phobos Librarian with Eliminators is something that’s been under-explored.

Very cool, but distinctly running into a problem here, which is that this Daemons list is not going to be super sad if a bunch of Space Wolves charge at it. In fact, they welcome this, and encourage them to go further. Skarbrand and Shalaxi both have a good shot at tanking a charge from one of the wolf units, and will then do horrific damage in response, and Nurglings can act as a speed bump to let the Daemons make the first move. Be’lakor’s aura also somewhat blunts the ability of the Marines to use their Dreadnoughts to try and play a cagier game.

That still feels like an avenue that’s open to them mind – they’ve got plenty of small units to play with, and if they focus on building up an asset advantage over the Daemons, it feels like they can make something happen here. If the Wolves charge all out it feels like there’s a good chance they bounce and pay dearly. If they force the Daemons to start pressing at them, then a concentrated counter-charge into one of the big target ends up much safer. A lot of that’s going to depend on the board, of course, and the Daemons also have the Lord of change to whittle down the Space Wolves’ scoring stuff if they play keepaway. This game definitely feels like one where it comes down to who can pressure the other into letting them make a decisive play first, at which point things swing very suddenly, and from looking at the scoreline, I’m guessing the Daemons were able to use all their sneaky movement stratagems to engineer an unfortunate accident for some of the big wolf toys, allowing them to seize victory.

Result

Chaos Daemons (Daemonic Incursion) Victory – 100 – 58

Trevor Wylie – Chaos Daemons (Daemonic Incursion) – 1st Place

Be'lakor
Be’lakor – Credit: RichyP

The List

See Showdown

Archetype

Monster Mash

Thoughts

Classic Monster Mash here – while you can go wider with a bunch of stuff post Dataslate, going hard on big threats is still very viable, and this build is very much a who’s who of the biggest nasties. Shooty Marines being on the rise makes Be’lakor’s aura better than ever, and as the final showed, this list can fully throw down up close as well. Congratulations Trevor.

The Best of the Rest

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

  • 2nd – Dakota Jensen – Orks (Waaagh! Tribe): Herohammer/pressure Orks with nasty units in Trukks and a tooled-up Squighog unit.
  • 3rd – Todd Kinkade – Space Wolves (Stormlance Task Force): Two Character-packed ThunderCav units backed by shooty hulls and Ragnar leading a small unit of Wolf Guard (I think?) into battle from a RepEx.
  • 4th – Robert Moreau – Dark Angels (Ironstorm Spearhead): Dreadnoughts for days, a Reaper for strat combos and Azrael chilling out back with some Intercessors to feed CP into the armoured stuff.
  • 5th – Kaleo Anderson  – Space Wolves (Stormlance Task Force): See showdown.

Wrap Up

A good attempt by the forces of Chaos, but pipped to the post on multiple occasions. Will they fare better in part 2 on Friday? Check back in to find out.

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