We have failed, failed in our scheduling this week, as after the Aeldari still took the crowns on Wednesday, today the forces of Chaos and the Imperium are taking names all over, with the World Eaters leading the charge. We could have coined “World Eaters Wednesday” as a thing! What a missed opportunity.

Lowest of Men is in charge today, and will be covering:

The California Cup ’23
Atomic City Warzone
PCG Hosts the Lightly Salted Fall GT
The Hogtowner 2023
BOLTERCON GT 2023
Warhammer 40,000 Grand Tournament @ XPG

You may notice one extra in there – Archon Skari has shared some thoughts about winning the GT@XPG with Drukhari, which is sure to be of interest to anyone who loves the Dark Kin.

Check out Wings’ Part 1 from Wednesday for:

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

The California Cup ’23

96-player, 9-round Major in San Diego, California, US on November 03 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Take and Hold

Anthony Vanella – World Eaters (Berzerker Warband):
Army List - Click to Expand

vs.

Alex Spathopoulos – Dark Angels (Unforgiven Task Force):
Army List - Click to Expand

Thoughts

Have you heard the one about the unstoppable force and the immovable object? Of course you have, you play 40k and half the armies in the game lean into one or other of these ideals! In the World Eaters corner we have an absolute slew of axe toting nutters ready to stage across the board and project threat, with the ever present possibility of a trap sprung via Overwhelming Force (preventing fall back from Exalted Eightbound on a failed leadership test) to turn a difficult situation into a fatal one. Multiple characters capable of killing God himself stalk the lines (If you’ve not looked up what a World Eaters Master of Executions does by now the best thing to do is just wait and see what happens when you play against one if i’m honest, don’t spoil the surprise for yourself), and Angron adds speedy hard target removal as well as, you know, low key immortality to the mix.

The Dark Angels certainly don’t want to party with this up close, but fortunately they have both spoiler and slayer potential in the Deathwing speed bump and the heavy guns of the Repulsor Executioners. World Eaters are fast and deadly, but they absolutely will die if picked off by good quality shooting – the Hellblasters here could do an absolute number on any of the profiles arrayed against them too. Cat and mouse, stalwart gunline against raving pressure list, a tale as old of time. Take and Hold is a generous primary mission that can reward both dying for the cause early on AND a cautious play for the end game swing, so this one comes down to the minutiae of getting the jump on the enemy first, ticking off the secondary scoring, and avoiding any fatal mistakes early on. As it is, it looks like the World Eaters were able to edge home to victory through bloody minded force of will…

Result

World Eaters (Berzerker Warband) Victory – 76 – 70

Anthony Vanella – World Eaters (Berzerker Warband) – 1st Place

Thoughts

A real mix of tools on display here in this Vanguard list, which packs some nasty infantry shooting on Devastators and Centurions to take advantage of redeployment shenanigans, and compliments them with a strong deep striking and forward deploying contingent. Inceptors are still brilliant, adding the ability to simply run away from charges helps the chaff cause mischief in the mid board, and the small forward deploying Terminator squad clocks in at about the right level of investment in Blade Driven Deep antics to avoid wasting tonnes of points on forward holdings. Vanguard are harder to play than Ironstorm but have plenty going for them and may well see more use once the herd hit up against the top of the meta and realise they might need to dig a little deeper… Very nicely done on the finish.

The Best of the Rest

The rest of the players on 5-1 prior to the top eight cut were:

5th – Arthur Tu – Word Bearers: Melee heavy CSM with one big brick of Obliterators behind the Accursed and Chosen.
6th – Nico Urrea – Thousand Sons: Magnus stays home, with three Mutalith Vortex Beasts taking his place alongside the usual suspects. Glorious.
7th – Grant Kauffman – Death Guard: Plague Marine Rhino rush with a tonne of Nurglings and some War Dogs in support.
8th – Michael Mann – Chaos Daemons: Rendmaster / Bloodcrusher shenanigans with the big man and a Great Unclean One leading the charge.
9th – Daniel Reddehase – Death Guard: Another take on the Rhino Rush / Daemons and War Dogs list! Interesting… See Ed?! Told you Death Guard are good!
10th – Logan Heath – Aeldari: Double Avatar Wraithguard Aeldari Goodstuff.
11th – Tyler Russo – Orks: The age of Trukk spam is over, the time of the Ghazgull and Squigs has come. Awesome list.

Atomic City Warzone

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

Lukas Troller – Chaos Knights (Traitoris Lance) – 1st Place

War Dog - Stalker. Credit: Rockfish — War Dog – Stalker. Credit: Rockfish

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

CK War Dog Spam

Final Round Matchup

86 – 56 Victory against Ben Bach – Asuryani (Battle Host).

Thoughts

CK War dog spam is still great, and still has game into Aeldari, as this final round triumph from Lukas demonstrates. Loads of niggling indirect, good punch through walls, and wonderfully efficient melee and shooting in Karnivores and Brigands can get the job done in the right hands. Not a tonne else to say on this one, CK are pretty figured out but still taking names at the top. Congratulations on the first place finish!

Donald Plummer – T’au Empire (Kauyon) – 2nd Place (Undefeated)

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Tau Crisis and Devilfish

Thoughts

A very well rounded Tau list here that packs in Hammerheads for hard target removal and some great mission play in the form of Devilfish mounted Breachers. These shoot very hard for their points, can pop onto a point to deny primary, and always have the option of hopping back in again if charged via their special rule. Tau have so many assets on the board to compliment the INSANE output of Tetra supported Crisis squads, and learning how to build around that core to provide enough give and go on the objectives in the early game is key to getting the best out of them. Very nicely done.

The Best of the Rest

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

3rd – Tarzan <3 – Orks (Waaagh! Tribe): Loads of Grot Tanks and Squighogz supporting Flash Gitz with Badruk, plenty of ranged threat alongside the forward pressure.
4th – Joel Rodgers – Space Wolves (Stormlance Task Force): All in Thunderwolves with three Vindicators for smashing stuff at range. Epic.
5th – Mitchell Hunter – Black Templars: Vehicle heavy Templars with Lancers and Redemptors to compliment the melee characters.
6th – Kolby Hopkins – Space Wolves: More Stormlance Thunderwolves on display, these ones brought Lancers for their ranged troubleshooting.
7th – Bill Anderson – Leagues of Votann: 25 Hearthguard, some Sagitaurs and a Fort with four characters sprinkled amongst the units.
8th – Ryan Cherewich – World Eaters: Loads of Eightbound and the usual hard hitting characters.
9th – James Marriott – Adepta Sororitas: Vahl inspired Paragons, some Castigators and Immolators with cheap infantry for the mission.

PCG Hosts the Lightly Salted Fall GT

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

The top table resulted in a draw here, so we’re featuring both lists from that game.

Evan Stump – Space Wolves (Gladius Task Force) – 1st Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Gladius Marines (Wolf Flavoured)

Final Round Matchup

53 – 53 Victory against Colin Kay – Chaos Space Marines (Slaves to Darkness).

Thoughts

Most of the typical tools of Gladius make an appearance here, with some Fire Discipline boosted threat removal, lots of cost effective ranged tanks for early exchanges, and Whirlwind artillery to those hard to reach spots. Space Wolves aren’t leant into particularly hard here but do give you access to Fenrisian Wolves, one of the cheapest possible options for screening, blocking and mild harassment, which is definitely something Marines enjoy having access to. Very well done on the win!

Colin Kay – Chaos Space Marines (Gladius Task Force) – 2nd Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

CSM Goodstuff

Thoughts

CSM are still great, still winning games, and still in need of some mild balance adjustments. Ooo look Huron Blackheart is here! He’s a pretty neat guy. Lucius the Eternal is also a very nifty little melee blender. Otherwise you know what this does by now – have you figured out stopping it? Can’t say I have… Great work on the top placing Colin.

The Best of the Rest

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

3rd – Marshall Peterson – Orks (Waaagh! Tribe): Imagine that ‘straying Boyfriend’ meme, but he’s looking away from Trukks and towards Squigs… that seems to be the gist for Orks at the moment, and Marshall brought a proper Squiggoth cause he’s a hero!
4th – Derek Holder – Adeptus Custodes (Shield Host): Trajann, lots of Allarus, double Calladius and utility. Proper mixed arms stuff.
5th – Richard Kilton – Orks: Oooo, a Gargantuan Squiggoth this time!! Lots of MSU Burna Boyz too – elf barbecue tech perhaps? Brilliant list.
6th – James Davis – Aeldari: Ynnari combining Ravagers with Nightspinners and lots of MSU infantry.

The Hogtowner 2023

37-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Toronto, ON, CA on November 04 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

This event adds some special narrative twists to missions, aiming to appeal to both casual and competitive crowds, and create chill vibes. Thanks to the organisers for sending us the details – the final round twist for this game was the players had to choose a gambit!

The Showdown

Take and Hold – Dawn of War

Lukas Duchaine – Astra Militarum (Combined Regiment):
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vs.

Alastair MacNicol – World Eaters (Berzerker Warband):
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Thoughts

A glorious showdown involving two dudes who just think big old models are neat. The World Eaters have crammed in additional big bois in the form of a Bloodthirster and a Lord of Skulls. The latter shoots deceptively hard and takes some seriously effort to kill, with the former providing a nasty Rapid Ingress option to add to the threat saturation of the Eightbound and their big bad tempered boss. It’ll simply overload a whole bunch of armies that don’t have the power to lift them in time. However…

The Astra Militarum enjoy lifting big things at range with the righteous fury of a thousand guns, and they’ve brought a big toy of their own. The Banesword shoots like an absolute monster, with heavy weapons that, combined with the output of the many lesser gun tanks on display, can smash apart the World Eaters heavy hitters whilst heroic guardsmen die screaming on the front line to buy them a turn or two. Usually that will be enough, and unless they somehow bounce of invuln saves you’d expect them to have enough firepower to body the World Eaters and then reload ready to kill Angron again if needed unless something very magical (read: horrible) happens and the WE pull off a trap. As such, the guard storm to a solid victory here!

Result

Astra Militarum (Combined Regiment) Victory – 67 – 49

Lukas Duchaine – Astra Militarum (Combined Regiment) – 1st Place

Astra Militarum Army. Credit: Lukas Duchaine — Credit: Lukas Duchaine

The List

See showdown

Archetype

Guard Big Tank

Thoughts

Fairly meat and potatoes tank guard, which eschews Manticores and sitting back in favour of trundling ominously forward to smash things up with the Banesword and friends. Big bricks of Sentinels and the 20 man Cadian squad can be thrown forward early to cause mayhem and disrupt enemy efforts to close on the guns, with the threat of regenerating them via Reinforcements! and picking at undefended weak spots in the opponent’s backfield as the attrition begins to show. Straightforward and very effective, and I’ll bet it looks awesome on the table too. Congratulations on the first place finish!

The Best of the Rest

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

2nd – Shane Phillips – Necrons (Awakened Dynasty): Double C’tan with the Void Dragon, msu Tomblades, some Lychguard and some heavy guns. This went undefeated with one draw!
3rd – Nick Jagiello – Astra Militarum (Combined Regiment): Massed Chimaeras, a bunch of Mortars, and THREE Avenger Strike Fighters.
4th – Guido Hockmann – Black Templars (Righteous Crusaders): A real grab-bag of units, with lots of different marines infantry supported by the usual heavy-hitting characters, a single Damned Legionaire, and some inquisition chaff units!
5th – Alastair MacNicol – World Eaters: Angron, a Bloodthirster, and a Lord of Skulls with lots of Eightbound. Awesome.
6th – Ciaran Kelly – Tyranids: Synaptic Nexus with a big brick of Zoans, Old One Eye and a Norn Emissary.

BOLTERCON GT 2023

36-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in West Chester Township, Ohio, US on November 04 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Josh Salzman – Black Templars (Righteous Crusaders) – 1st Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Black Templars Mixed Arms

Final Round Matchup

86 – 85 Victory against Chris Kentrup – Thousand Sons (Cult of Magic).

Thoughts

Black Templars are enjoying a breakout season here, performing well with a wide range of builds from outright infantry spam through to more mixed ones like the above, which sprinkles in high quality Marine vehicles (Redemptors get even chewier with access to a 6+++!), and a Land Raider for staging and transporting. My understanding was that this final into Tsons was an absolute classic and came down to a redrawn card in the last turn giving the Land Raider the chance to Capture Enemy Outpost and bring home the win by a single point- absolutely amazing! Very well done on the win Josh.

The Best of the Rest

There were 3 more players on 4-1 records, plus the other finalist on 3.5-1.5. They were:

2nd – Peter Hattemer – Necrons (Awakened Dynasty): Lychguard, Warriors, and buffing characters. You know the drill!
3rd – Jason Walker – Iron Hands (Ironstorm Spearhead): Vindicators, an Invictor Warsuit, and some Centurions. Baller.
4th – Adam Blum – Cult Mechanicus (Rad-Cohort): A highly unusual Ad Mech build with a brick of Electro Priests and some Kastelan Robots, love it.
5th – Chris Kentrup – Thousand Sons: Sorceror and Rubric Spam with Magnus leading the chants.

Warhammer 40,000 Grand Tournament @ XPG

All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission: Drukhari versus Imperial Knights

Ridvan “Skari” Martinez

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vs.

Chris Orr:

Army List - Click to Expand

Thoughts

An intriguing and unusual finals match up here, as the Dark Kin blast their way through to a showdown with a host of Imperial Knights. The latter are packing a whole bunch of Armigers with two Assassins for mission play help. The Knight Castellan hands out buffs and offers an enormous ranged threat of his own, though somewhat less so in a post data-slate world where neither Towering nor Overwatch will help it out quite as much.

In the other corner, Archon Skari continues to demonstrate his evergreen prowess for winning games with the Drukhari no matter the weather. He has some tech that I think gears him up very well for the current turn the meta has taken, with a number of top builds leaning heavily into Vehicles, by bringing six Talos to the fray. These glorious murder-crabs shoot very hard into enemy armour with the ability to pump out Dev wounds via their Haywire with full rerolls from Power from Pain and being Twin-linked respectively, and are obnoxious to pick up in return once Insensible to Pain is in the mix to stimy enemy attacks. Mandrakes shore up scoring, and the Scourges are really good into any match ups where artillery is light on the ground. It won’t surprise you to know that Knights don’t like Haywire or Shoot and Scooting Dark Lances very much, and the Drukhari romped to a heavy victory here!

Result:

99-50 to the Drukhari

Ridvan “Skari” Martinez – 1st Place

Scourges with shardcarbines. Credit: Corrode

The List

See showdown

Archetype

Drukhari Talos

Thoughts

We’ve had communications from the Archon himself about this one – take it away Skari:

Skari:

I want to talk about how the main concepts of how my list came about. The idea of the list was a pretty simple one: “I need to have many units all over the table to score points and deny my opponent points”. I have been playing with the Drukhari on and off since the start of the edition and all that practice has really shown me the ins and outs of what is considered to be one of the worst factions in the meta at the moment. I can go into more details about the ins and outs of the drukhari specifically in another, more in depth, article so let me know if you would like me to ramble about that for a few pages. Needless to say the current drukhari do not play as the 9th edition drukhari did, they are more akin to the 3rd – 5th edition version of Dark Eldar (lots of little shooty units). So! I wanted to lean into that style, less points on things like characters and more points on things that can be used for zoning, board control and primary scoring and denial, as well as the ability to do either tactical or fixed secondary scoring.

I also wanted to highlight one of the largest differences between my list and the current “meta” drukhari lists. That is the addition of talos in place of the void raven bomber and the ravagers. 3 units of 2 talos (maximum talos) each armed with twin linked haywire blaster, and twin linked liquifier guns and the talos gauntlets give me the ability to threaten hard to kill vehicles that have become more and more popular in the meta right now. The liquifiers threaten light infantry and give my army the ability to make use of the overwatch strat more effectively against things like aeldari and lastly the gauntlets are damage 3 and on the tough body of a talos it gives the list something it severely lacks… mid board pressure and “presence” . This change is in place of the ravagers and the popular void raven bomber, so I have sacrificed some of the long range shooting in place of some more flexibility in the mid board. Something that came quite in handy against a lot of the meta lists that we are seeing at the moment, like wraithguard or terminators, or aggressors.

So, how did I do?

Let’s talk about how the list did overall with a quick synopsis of every game. You can always watch my “tournament in review” video that I did about the event.

Round 1 – I played into Aledari. The list was more focussed on harlequins, and jetbikes. There was a LOT of haywire in this army and bright lances. Having the talos was a blessing as the haywire would have shredded my army if it was more ravager based. I was able to bully the midboard.

Round 2 – I played, into Aeldari – once again!. This time it was a more traditional list with Wraith Guard and both Avatars. I was able to push into the middle of the table, and the talos once again proved their worth being able to hold up and eventually eliminate the wraith guard in the mid board. The large number of units in my army allowed me to deny my opponent scoring with reckless abandon.

Round 3 – The Time The Gambit Worked

I have to give a little bit of time to this round against the meta Votann. It is not easy to play against the 6 transports, and terminator brick and the bikes supported by the thunderkin. We played supply drop and I went first (not ideal). At the end of turn 3, I realised that I was just not going to be able to score any more primary points, as my opponent was on better board position to just deny me scoring (it did not help that the objectives that stayed were closer to his side of the table) . SO ! I went for a gambit. I was able to get the Orbital Strike Coordinates one (the easiest one) and because my army has a million units I had enough models left to continue to score secondary, deny my opponents primary turn 4 and then have the units remaining to be in each corner to try and roll the 9… and I DID! +30 points and I won the round by 14 points or so. What a wild finish, my opponent, Cody was a great sport about it, and went on to crush all other opposition placing 2nd at the event. But I would not have been able to do it if my list concept was not “have all of the units”.

Round 4 – I played against Black Templars. This was not an easy fight, the large brick of 5+ FNP assault terminators is not easy to shift. I was able to isolate one of the crusader squads early and kill it. And then spent the rest of the game, move blocking and killing redemptor dreadnoughts. Because I was aggressive in denying his primary I was able to secure the game, even as he also attempted a gambit to swing the game at the end!

And lastly – Round 5 – I played Chris, who ive known since I was in university! We have not played a game in… 12 years or so? The last mission was Purge the Foe, and he was playing imperial knights. And… I will say.. In this game, the talos just absolutely went to town… they killed… so many knights… haywire is so boss against vehicles. So a victory for the Drukhari!

And there you have it! A quick run down. My next event is an 8 person teams event and I am looking forward to applying some of the changes I have made to my list like adding urien and dropping the raider.

Ahhh The Dark Kin.

Skari – out.

The Best of the Rest

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

2nd – Cody Bourgeois – Leagues of Votann: Sagitaur spam supported by three Iron-Master inspired Thunderkyn units.
3rd – Charles Soong – Chaos Knights: Chaos Knight War Dog spam with Daemon allies.
4th – Carlo Roque – Dark Angels (Ironstorm Spearhead): Ironstorm artillery / dreadnought car park.

Wrap Up

That’s it for this week folks! Tonnes of games in play, and an overall meta that looks quite healthy, as the existing big dogs increasingly have to share space with a bunch of other armies that specialists are digging into and finding new tricks. Marines are good but not TOOO good (yet), which sets us up for a nice winter run in ahead of Christmas. Get out there and SLEIGH YOUR FOES… hehe.

Competitive Innovations in 10th: The Dark Is Rising pt.2

The California Cup ’23

The Showdown

Take and Hold

Thoughts

Result

Anthony Vanella – World Eaters (Berzerker Warband) – 1st Place

The List

Archetype

Final Round Matchup

Thoughts

Alex Spathopoulos – Dark Angels (Unforgiven Task Force) – 2nd Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

Innes Wilson – Chaos Space Marines (Slaves to Darkness) – 3rd Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

Brad Chester – Dark Angels (Vanguard Spearhead) – 4th Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

The Best of the Rest

Atomic City Warzone

Lukas Troller – Chaos Knights (Traitoris Lance) – 1st Place

The List

Archetype

Final Round Matchup

Thoughts

Donald Plummer – T’au Empire (Kauyon) – 2nd Place (Undefeated)

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

The Best of the Rest

PCG Hosts the Lightly Salted Fall GT

Evan Stump – Space Wolves (Gladius Task Force) – 1st Place

The List

Archetype

Final Round Matchup

Thoughts

Colin Kay – Chaos Space Marines (Gladius Task Force) – 2nd Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

The Best of the Rest

The Hogtowner 2023

The Showdown

Take and Hold – Dawn of War

Thoughts

Result

Lukas Duchaine – Astra Militarum (Combined Regiment) – 1st Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

The Best of the Rest

BOLTERCON GT 2023

Josh Salzman – Black Templars (Righteous Crusaders) – 1st Place

The List

Archetype

Final Round Matchup

Thoughts

The Best of the Rest

Warhammer 40,000 Grand Tournament @ XPG

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission: Drukhari versus Imperial Knights

Thoughts

Result:

Ridvan “Skari” Martinez – 1st Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

The Best of the Rest

Wrap Up

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