TheChirurgeon: Welcome back to another week of Competitive Innovations, where we recap the weekend’s GTs and Majors, talk about the matchups, and analyze the top lists. Normally you’d see James “One_Wing” Grover in this space talking about events, but I’ve been informed that this week’s he’s either “just sick” or “sick of your bullshit.” I dunno, it’s definitely one of those two.

So instead you get the equally capable B-Squad, analysis cobbled together from yours truly, Peter “The Falcon” Colosimo, and Jeremy “Curie” Atkinson. So join us as we talk about this past weekend’s games. Follow along and say things in the comments below, even.

As usual, you perverts keep playing too much tournament Warhammer and so this week’s events have been split in order to make things more manageable. Today we’ll be covering:

Frontline Gaming RMO 2024 40k Champs
Battlefield Birmingham 22
CQ Exterminatus 2024
Bastion Games Warlords GT 3.0: Unforgiven
Free state GT 2024
Lords of War GT – March 2024
The Ides of March 40K GT

On Friday, you will have Lowest of Men as normal, covering:

OPEN “ATLAVERA” 2024 (IBERIAN OPEN)
Talvisota – Winter Assault 2024
JP CUP
Toys of Mass Destruction – Hertfordshire Spring GT
Last Of The Summer Winehammer 6
BFS Grand Tournament

Wings: Thanks to the dream team for stepping up here – there’s still a few of my words later on, as my production pipeline involves getting the Best of Rests done first, in this case before Nurgle’s wrath struck me. Hopefully I’ll be back as normal next week!

Frontline Gaming RMO 2024 Warhammer 40K Champs

198-player, 6-round Grand Tournament in Brighton, CO, US on March 16 2024. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

This event was streamed by Wargames Live. You can find coverage here:

Day 1

Day 2

Zaak Kerstetter – Blood Angels (Sons of Sanguinius) – 1st Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Death Visions of Slamguinius

Thoughts

Falcon: Sometimes a meta requires you to come up with new innovations; a deft hand, tricky plays, and stratagem combinations that change the nature of the game itself. And sometimes it requires a distinct and brutal application of force. There is very little more brutal or forceful in the game right now than walking into an army that apparently stopped at the local big box warehouse and bought their power fists at a bulk discount. The Sons of Sanguinius detachment saw just the glow up it needed a month ago with its +2 bonus to strength, putting the Blood Angels’ scariest units past the breakpoints of the current big bads in the game, and the lists that have slowly risen to the top take full advantage of being able to prey on the Custodes and Hypercrypts of the world. This particular list packs a lot of highly mobile strength 6 and 10 hits with the additional protection of a Redeemer for the assault squads/captains and a Rhino for the Death Company that forgot to fill out their jump pack requisition forms. The Sanguinor is an excellent Lone Op unit that creates a credible threat opponents have to consider prior to engaging in any combat, scouts all the cheap multi-purpose unit everyone wants, and the Lancer, well the Lancer is just really good. Right now it’s a pretty good time to think you’re Sanguinius.

Daniel Harrison – World Eaters (Berzerker Warband) – 2nd Place (Undefeated)

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Married with Children

Thoughts

Falcon: Angron and a Lord of Skulls,I dare you to name a better power couple in humanity’s far future. They are the Jay-Z and Beyonce of the 41st millennium and no one can convince me otherwise. When there is only war, sometimes you just need to bring multiple actual avatars of carnage and/or multi-platinum award winning artists to the table to stand a chance and this list packs enough heat in these two big bodies to handle a lot of the toughness skewed Dreadknight and Custodes lists that have been making the rounds. It definitely helps that behind these bold beasts of burden lies a potent second wave of murderous intent with the Daemon Prince, Juggalord, and dual Helbrutes veritably saturating the board. Jackals and Chaos Spawn round out the list with just enough support to score some points and take advantage of the player-placed terrain while everything else applies pressure.

Cody Jiru – Drukhari (Skysplinter Assault) – 3rd Place (5.5-0.5)

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

1982 Cult Classic Beast Master

Thoughts

Falcon: In the early 80s people were really into guys wearing loincloths and stabbing evil wizards and priests. It was a whole thing. I blame Reaganomics. Anyway, in late 1982, a movie called the Beastmaster came out, it was supposed to be a remake of a sci-fi novel but somewhere along the way they decided it was better to answer the question ‘What if Conan the Barbarian could talk to animals like a Disney princess?’ The answer is 3 movies and an early ‘00s television series.

But what does that have to do with anything here you may ask? Nothing, really, but seeing all these Beastmasters in a list reminded me of simpler times. Anyway, back on topic, Cody is taking Skysplinter in its thickest direction yet and dropping a big old Tantalus on the board flanked by 3 Cronos, and 3 Beastmaster squads rather than going really wide with venoms or multiple raiders (though there is room for a few here). Despite their amazing mobility, Drukhari are still glass cannons so packing longevity into the list is not a bad thing. The beast masters make for excellent meat mole hills that take actual effort to tear down with their 21 wounds,holding up enemy units long enough for the precision combat instruments in the list to tear down their targets with liberal application of pounce upon the prey and wraith-like retreat. Vicious Blades is also a real threat here as the Tantalus is fullying capable of ramming through a target and then slipping an extra 5-6 mortal wounds in on the sly. Despite running the big boat and its buddies this list is still packed to the brim with scoring and area denial that can’t be overlooked.

Colin Ruegsegger – Necrons (Canoptek Court) – 4th Place (5.5-0.5)

C'tan Shard of the Void Dragon. Credit: Rockfish — C’tan Shard of the Void Dragon. Credit: Rockfish

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Canoptek C’Tan

Thoughts

Falcon: Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. 3 C’Tan walk into an event…

While Canoptek Court has seen a drop in play in favor of Hypercrypt lists, Colin takes the old Wraiths and C’Tan out for a spin to great success regardless. The Doomstalkers here add some real long range threats to soften up targets and particularly protect the wraiths and C’Tan from Trajan Valoris and his coterie of Custodian Guard. The list also just does a helluva job at clearing out marine equivalents, which is great for Colin as they made up 4 of his opponents on the weekend. A great list with some real teeth in the current meta.

The Best of the Rest

There were 15 more players on 5-1 records. They were:

5th – Tom Cohen – Necrons (Hypercrypt Legion): Triple C’tan (Nightbringer and two Transcendent) and two Wraith bricks, with a Plasmancer Immortal block and some Heavy Destroyers for dakka.
6th – Cory Weber – Necrons (Hypercrypt Legion): Quad C’tan and one Wraith brick.
7th – Ben Neal – Ultramarines (Vanguard Spearhead): The Centurion special, squeezing in an extra tank by downgrading Calgar’s hype men to a second squad of Company Heroes.
8th – Nicolas Wenker – Chaos Daemons: Monster mash with Shalaxi, Big Bird, a GuO with the Gift and Be’lakor, backed by speedy Seekers and sticky Horrors/Plaguebearers.
9th – Tucker Rickey – Genestealer Cult: A real blast from six months ago here, infiltrating Aberrants (plus the standard shooty horde).
10th – Frank Guerra – Tyranids (Invasion Fleet): Shooty Monster Mash with Exocrines, Maleceptors and a Tyrannofex, plus one big Ravener block as a good place to drop the Feel No Pain stratagem.
11th – Daniel Bradley – Adepta Sororitas: A fairly high pressure Sisters build that adds some extra Warsuits and a squad of Sacresants (with Junith) to the normal all-rounder mix.
12th – John Kilcommons – T’au Empire: Triptide, Breacherfish and Broadsides. Coming soon to a Mont’ka build near you.
13th – Benjamin Jurek – Astra Militarum: Double Tank Commander, loads of Kasrkin, and Bullgryn MSUs acting as the forward push while some Basilisks and Manticores rack up kills.
14th – Troy Trujillo – Black Templars (Ironstorm Spearhead): Double RepEx and Impulsors with nasty melee inside, plus some Gladiators.
15th – John Holbrook – Death Guard: Mortarion-free crunchy Death Guard, going for extra shooting with Predators and Plaguebursts, lots of packed Rhinos and some Bloat-drones for extra pressure.
16th – Nathan Cartmell – Grey Knights: Three Dreadknights and two big Terminator bricks (one of each flavour).
17th – Cameron Mitchell – Deathwatch (Black Spear Task Force): Three tooled up kill teams (two Indomitor, one Proteus) and some Terminator MSUs providing backing. Nice to see this detachment get actual use!
18th – Adam Dye – Chaos Space Marines: Abaddon gunline with Vindicators and Obliterators.
19th – Brett Sandersfeld – Adeptus Custodes: Three big blocks, two small Allarus units and a pair of Caladius tanks.

Battlefield Birmingham 22

84-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in England, GB on March 16 2024. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Priority Targets – Chosen Battlefield – Dawn of War

Oliver Gaisford – Adeptus Custodes (Shield Host)
Army List - Click to Expand

vs.

Mani Cheema – Grey Knights (Teleport Strike Force)
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Thoughts

Falcon: Meat Mountain meets the Psychic Titan Train in a skew vs skew match-up that feels like a tough nut for the Custodes to crack. Heavy Psycannons are a bane on Custodes foot units and while Trajann Valoris can at times be a one-man army, the golden guards are going to need to be able to hide really well and rely on their superior objective control as there are 118 Toughness 8 wounds in this list and T8 is a breakpoint the Custodes can struggle with already. Tag on multiple Techmarines to heal up any incidental damage and this is one pile of wounds that some lists will struggle with. No doubt the lack of Draxus, or other tech scoring pieces was probably keenly felt in this match-up though just going all in on the gold did get Oliver this far for a reason!

TheChirurgeon: The updated guns on the Nemesis Dreadknight are basically tailor-made to kill custodes now that they’re AP-2 with Ignores Cover. And that’s exactly what happened in this game, where Mani could delete a unit of Wardens at a time. For the Custodes, everything hinges on being able to make early charges into the Dreadknights to remove them from the table before they can do too much damage. Oliver had the first turn, holding Trajan and the Ceaseless Blade Champion units in reserve. He filled us in on the game itself, and here’s what he had to say:

Oliver: “By turn 3 [Mani} was doing so much damage to me that I decided I needed to go all in on a hail mary or I’d have no chance. I’d resurrected a guy on my home objective to give me a 7” charge into one Dreadknight, moved a Guard unit 9” away from another, dropped the Blade Champion’s unit 9” from another, and Trajan’s Unit 9” from another, with a land Raider in the centre of the table.

I ended up only making the 7” charge out of those, and Mani tabled me on his turn 3.”

TheChirurgeon: This is also a very similar list to one Mani took took a trophy with a few weeks back. Oliver decided to netlist for the event as a way to change things up from playing Chaos Knights and ended up playing into Mani with his own list. Tragic, though it’s a hilarious move on Mani’s part to play a list that dumpsters his last one.

Result

Grey Knights (Teleport Strike Force) Victory – 100 – 33

Mani Cheema – Grey Knights (Teleport Strike Force) – 1st Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Psychic Titan Train

Thoughts

See the showdown. It’s a lot of toughness 8 wounds that teleport and shoot you. That’s it. That’s the story.

Leonard Percival – Space Wolves (Stormlance Task Force) – 2nd Place (Undefeated)

Logan Grimnar Santa Mode — Logan Grimnar as Santa Claus. Credit: Kevin Stillman

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Thunderwolfstorm

Thoughts

Falcon: Logan Grimnar leads a swarm of 20 Thunderwolves in a list that has 0 chill. Three massive Wolf units with advance and charge can really clog up the board in a hurry, and while this list has often suffered from a lack of damage potential due to the low AP on the regular cavalry weapons, getting access to army wide charge and hit rerolls once per game from the High King of Fenris ability does allow for your ‘go turn’ to stick the landing more often than not. 2 Lancers in the backfield keep opposing heavy targets honest while infiltrators, scouts and the callidus keep the score tally rising. Ride Hard, Ride Fast will keep 2 units of Thunderwolves locked in combat for the entire game if you need it.

Matt Bell – Grey Knights (Teleport Strike Force) – 3rd Place

Grey Knights Nemesis Dreadknights. Credit: Colin Ward

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Grey Knight Mixer

Thoughts

Falcon: Nemesis Dreadknights apply long range pressure to back up a massive Paladin Brick with Kaldor Draigo at the fore. Interceptors and Strikes give the list a modicum of extra scoring. One with the Warp is a backbreaker in the right match-up allowing Draigo to either get in a precision strike if attached to the terminators or an absolute atom-smasher with the Paladins.

Gareth Jones – Adeptus Custodes (Shield Host) – 4th Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Mini-Meat Mountain

Thoughts

Falcon: Custodes infantry skew continues to put up results. Blade Champions allow for the extra mobility required to engage on their own terms and the addition of a Callidus ensures extra scoring potential when things grind to a halt.

The Best of the Rest

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

5th – Peter Bunce – Orks: Ork Goodstuff.
6th – Richard Kilpatrick – Tyranids (Unending Swarm): an intriugingly balanced Swarm build, mixing in the key big Gargoyle and Hormagaunt blocks with Exocrines and Maleceptors for more heft.
7th – Josh Richards – Necrons (Hypercrypt Legion): Two C’tan, two Doomsdays and a big unit each of Immortals and Warriors ot play around with a Monolith.
8th – Maciek ”Magic” Chamier-Cieminski – Adeptus Custodes: Infantry spam with three units each of Guard and Wardens.
9th – Peter Clappison – Astra Militarum: Two big Death Korps tarpits with a trio of Russ Exterminators behind them.
10th – Matiss Krumins – Space Wolves (Stormlance Task Force): Two big ThunderCav blocks surrounded by lots of small pressure pieces like Wulfen MSUs and Jump Intercessors.
11th – Dawid Szmyt – Necrons (Canoptek Court): Double Immortals, double Doomstalker, triple Wraiths.
12th – Kevin Davies – Tyranids (Invasion Fleet): Monster Mash with the Old One-Eye/Dakkafex unit.
13th – Adam Gourlay – Drukhari (Skysplinter Assault): Standard mix of speedy melee and dakka boats.
14th – Donny Evason – Necrons (Hypercrypt Legion): Double Immortals with Szeras, one Wraith unit and a Monolith.
15th – Oliver Gaisford – Adeptus Custodes: See Showdown
16th – Adam Trotter – Imperial Knights: Maximum gallantry makes a glorious return, three of them slamming into the foe alongside a Castigator.

CQ Exterminatus 2024 – Warhammer 40k Tournament

40-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Rockhampton City, QLD, Australia on March 15 2024. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Joshua McGowan – Blood Angels (Sons of Sanguinius) – 1st Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

We Have Death Company At Home

Thoughts

Falcon: In our second big result in this article for the Blood Angels, Josh McGowan takes a wider approach, eschewing the frothing madmen that make up the Death Company in favor of squad after squad of Assault Intercessors backed by Sanguinary Priests to improve the longevity of the larger 10-man squads and up the AP on their chainswords into ‘show some respect’ range. 2 units of bladeguard provide some extra elite killing power as Str 7 Master crafted power weapons are no joke. The omni-present Redeemer is backed up here by a stalwart impulsor to maximize mobility when the time is right to apply maximum pressure.

The Best of the Rest

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

2nd – Gavin Bube – Adeptus Custodes (Shield Host): Four routine infantry blocks plus a big Allarus unit.
3rd – Cameron Sanderson – Necrons (Hypercrypt Legion): Double C’tan, Triple Immortals and Monolith.
4th – Michael Stratford – T’au Empire (Kauyon): A big Crisis team joined by a mix of smaller things, including the rare sight of a Y’vahra.
5th – Zac Lehr – Tzeentch Daemons: Be’lakor and three large avian threats, plus lots of smaller speedy/flamey things.
6th – Benjamin Sharpe – Necrons (Hypercrypt Legion): Triple C’tan, double Immortals, Monolith.

Bastion Games Warlords GT 3.0: Unforgiven

42-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Northern Ireland, GB on March 16 2024. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Harry McComb – Necrons (Canoptek Court) – 1st Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Triple C’Tan Canoptek Court

Thoughts

We’ve seen this story a lot recently, with a list running triple C’Tan supported by a ton of wraiths and acanthrites, destroyers, and crypteks. The Acanthrites aren’t as durable as the Wraiths, but they’re still pretty annoying to deal with, and tag units with their Damaged Armour ability to improve the AP on allies’ attacks against that same unit, which is a very solid deal for the Enmitic Exterminators on the Lokhust Heavy Destroyers.

Ross McCarroll – Thousand Sons (Cult of Magic) – 2nd Place (Undefeated)

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Characters and double Forgefiend Thousand Sons

Thoughts

TheChirurgeon: The Forgefiend builds continue to have legs (four of them, really), where they bring enough firepower and toughness at 135 points that it really doesn’t matter that they don’t have the ability to push out a bunch of Devastating Wounds. And anything they don’t kill eating a -1 penalty to hit rolls is just icing on the cake. The list otherwise runs lighter on Rubrics than most we’ve seen up to this point, instead relying on solo characters – Exalted Sorcerers and Ahriman on Discs – to zip around the table and cause problems while doing actions.

The Best of the Rest

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

3rd – Martin Sloan – Black Templars (Righteous Crusaders): One big and two small Primaris Crusader units, backed by a Redeemer and Impulsor full of Sword Brethren.
4th – Richard Moore – Blood Angels (Sons of Sanguinius): Vying for the title of “scariest Land Raider” we have one packed with foot Death Company, joined by flying ones and various other pressure pieces.
5th – Michael McConkey – Tyranids (Unending Swarm): Big horde plus Exocrines, Maleceptors and a Tyrannofex.

Lords Of War GT – March 2024

35-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Madison, AL, US on March 16 2024. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Take and Hold – Chilling Rain – Search and Destroy

Sean Rice – Adepta Sororitas (Hallowed Martyrs)
Army List - Click to Expand

vs.

Matthew Rogers – World Eaters (Berzerker Warband)
Army List - Click to Expand

Thoughts

This is a tough matchup for the World Eaters, who don’t have less support, fewer units, and more variance than they used to while the Sisters of Battle largely have a bit more variance thanks to nerfs to the Triumph of St. Katherine. What would have been a close matchup late last year is now more lopsided, as the Sororitas largely match up well against the World Eaters, particularly when they run this light on models. The Castigator is practically made for killing Eightbound, while the flagellants and warsuits give the army some melee units the World Eaters really don’t want to get charged by.

Result

Adepta Sororitas (Hallowed Martyrs) Victory – 85 – 56

Sean Rice – Adepta Sororitas (Hallowed Martyrs) – 1st Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Sisters Mixed Arms

Thoughts

Sean dumps the Exorcists altogether, but rather than go heavy on Castigators instead opts for a combined arms approach, leaning on a mix of sisters, seraphim, retributors, and arco-flagellants. It’s a list which really shows off how flexible the Adepta Sororitas can be, particularly when you compare it to the lists we saw just last week. Anyone who’s gone up against arco-flagellants will tell you how nasty they are in melee, and how surprisingly hard to kill they can be, especially with small arms fire.

The Best of the Rest

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

2nd – Jeremy Stan – T’au Empire (Kauyon): A big Crisis Team, triple Breacherfish, triple Riptide.
3rd – Robert Blackwell – Necrons (Canoptek Court): Silent King and Doomstalkers, plus Wraiths and a pair of C’tan.
4th – Lucas Hering – T’au Empire (Kauyon): extra go-wide shooting with Sky Rays in addition to Riptides and lots of foot-slogging Breachers.
5th – Subastjion Ritter – Tyranids (Invasion Fleet): Honestly a bit of everything, plus a Barbed Hierodule as a chunky centrepiece.
6th – Coleman Smith – Chaos Daemons: Mega monster mash with five big threats (Gift GuO, Rotigus, Keeper, Big Bird, Be’lakor) and a scattering of other tools for objectives.
7th – Matthew Rogers – World Eaters: Angron, Invocatus, one Rhino packed with scary stuff and a whole lotta Eightbound.
8th – Steven Crawley – Dark Angels (Ironstorm Spearhead): Double Dark Angels Stormraven, with the cute addition of some Bladeguard for Azrael to pal around with on the backlines.

Free State GT 2024

33-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Holton, KS, United States on March 16 2024. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Dan Sammons – Leagues of Votann (Oathband) – 1st Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Sagitaur Rush

Thoughts

Curie: Dan Sammons has now won 2 GTs with Votann this edition (the previous one being New Years Knockout 2024), and narrowly missed winning a third at Big Beef Beat Down two weeks ago (losing out on the top table to Imperial Knights in an extremely tight game). Clearly intending to show that they still pack a punch after their key units (Sagitaurs, Einhyr Hearthguard) got hit in the Q1 2024 Dataslate, he’s brought 6 Sagitaurs, a big brick of Einhyr Hearthguard, and three units of Cthonian Beserks. Sprinkled in with this list is another 3 units of Hernkyn Pioneers to provide mobile scoring and decent firepower into chaff as well as the necessary Grim Demeanour character (in this case an Einhyr Champion leading the Einhyr Hearthguard). This allows him to deal with C’tans and damage-mitigation units such as the Avatar of Khaine much more efficiently between shooting and melee with that unit.

Good thing too, as Dan powered through 3 Necron opponents (2 Hypercrypt and 1 Canoptek Court), clearing (one would assume) 7 C’tans on the way!

The interesting part of this list is the lack of Hearthkyn Warriors – there is only a single unit of them here, with the Sagitaurs being filled out by the three Cthonian Beserk units and a single (solo) Grimnyr. This variant of the build is seeing a lot more play since the Q1 2024 Dataslate that raised the prices on the key Votann units mentioned above. There is something very fun (and quite spooky for the opponent) at scouting up a Sagitaur filled with Beserks behind a ruin and daring your opponent to get close to it! Congratulations Dan and may you continue your acquisition of podiums!

The Best of the Rest

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

2nd – Treynor Wolfe – Adeptus Custodes (Shield Host): Four block with two Caladius.
3rd – Chase Campbell – Necrons (Canoptek Court): Double C’tan, triple Doomstalker, double Wraiths.
4th – Aaron Hermstedt – Death Guard (Plague Company): Mortarion and crunch, going for a full unit of Deathshrouds as an additional melee nightmare.
5th – Joe Guzowski – Orks: Heavy aggro with lots of Meganobz with Big Meks and various other pressure pieces (including Snikrot with a full Kommando squad).
6th – Isaiah Norton- Black Templars (Righteous Crusaders): A big squad of Primaris Crusaders as a centrepiece, supported by Sword Brethren in a Redeemer and the comedy Templar magnetic Vindicator.

The Ides of March 40k GT

30-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Rockport, ME, United States on March 16 2024. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

This event was streamed live by Tactical Tortoise 40k. You can find the streams of the event here:

Day 1

Day 2

Drew Salzborn – T’au Empire (Kauyon) – 1st Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Mechanized T’au

Thoughts

TheChirurgeon: The T’au have had a surprising amount of success since the Q1 dataslate, making regular top 4s and securing some noteworthy GT wins. Going heavy on vehicles offers T’au the ability to combine mobility with solid durability – Each Tetra or Piranha is a T7, 7W, OC2, 4+ save body, with 14” movement and either Scouts 9” (Piranhas) or Infiltrate (Tetras). That means if you want to clear them off an objective you need to have a way to push through 7-14 damage, buying plenty of time for the rest of the army to bear down on you while you’re screwing around with cheap bikes.

With the new Codex it will be interesting to see how T’au armies change, particularly as the Mont’ka and Retaliation Cadre detachments offer the chance to completely change how the army works, letting players push forward aggressively early instead of having to play a more patient waiting game (which, now that I think about it, is very much in flavor for the army). That said, it’s going to be a while yet.

The Best of the Rest

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

2nd – Casey Glynn – Necrons (Hypercrypt Legion): Triple Immortals, lots of Heavy Destroyers and a Monolith.
3rd – Damien Smith – Iron Hands (Ironstorm Spearhead): Dakka hulls plus the unusual (but honestly interesting) choice of a drop pod with 2×5 Hellblasters.
4th – William Cliff – Genestealer Cult (Ascension Day): Horde plus an Aberrant unit.
5th – John Shippee – Black Templars (Righteous Crusaders): Aggro Templars with Sword Brethren, Primaris Crusaders and even a squad of Assault Centurions.

Final Thoughts

TheChirurgeon: That concludes this week. There are plenty of changes in store over the next few weeks – the first being that Codex: Dark Angels is finally legal for tournament play, with updated points to match. While we aren’t expecting them to make a big competitive splash, things are less dire for the army than it originally appeared. The other is the new Codex: T’au Empire which, like Codex: Dark Angels before it, was released as part of a boxed set and now we must wait several weeks for real points and tournament legality on the book. That means we’re due for a fair amount of the current status quo, so expect to see a lot more weeks like this one, where Necrons clean up.

In the meantime, Black Templars are making waves, with two event wins this week and a growing number of TiWP results. For more on those developments, check back Friday for the second part of this week’s Competitive Innovations, when Lowest of Men will be taking on the rest.

Competitive Innovations in 10th: The Imperium Strikes Back pt.1

Frontline Gaming RMO 2024 Warhammer 40K Champs

Zaak Kerstetter – Blood Angels (Sons of Sanguinius) – 1st Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

Daniel Harrison – World Eaters (Berzerker Warband) – 2nd Place (Undefeated)

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

Cody Jiru – Drukhari (Skysplinter Assault) – 3rd Place (5.5-0.5)

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

Colin Ruegsegger – Necrons (Canoptek Court) – 4th Place (5.5-0.5)

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

The Best of the Rest

Battlefield Birmingham 22

The Showdown

Priority Targets – Chosen Battlefield – Dawn of War

Thoughts

Result

Mani Cheema – Grey Knights (Teleport Strike Force) – 1st Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

Leonard Percival – Space Wolves (Stormlance Task Force) – 2nd Place (Undefeated)

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

Matt Bell – Grey Knights (Teleport Strike Force) – 3rd Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

Gareth Jones – Adeptus Custodes (Shield Host) – 4th Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

The Best of the Rest

CQ Exterminatus 2024 – Warhammer 40k Tournament

Joshua McGowan – Blood Angels (Sons of Sanguinius) – 1st Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

The Best of the Rest

Bastion Games Warlords GT 3.0: Unforgiven

Harry McComb – Necrons (Canoptek Court) – 1st Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

Ross McCarroll – Thousand Sons (Cult of Magic) – 2nd Place (Undefeated)

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

The Best of the Rest

Lords Of War GT – March 2024

The Showdown

Take and Hold – Chilling Rain – Search and Destroy

Thoughts

Result

Sean Rice – Adepta Sororitas (Hallowed Martyrs) – 1st Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

The Best of the Rest

Free State GT 2024

Dan Sammons – Leagues of Votann (Oathband) – 1st Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

The Best of the Rest

The Ides of March 40k GT

Drew Salzborn – T’au Empire (Kauyon) – 1st Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

The Best of the Rest

Final Thoughts