The Chaos rising continues apace, and the mighty Aeldari finally blink. Just a teeny, tiny bit. They’re still great, but despite there being eleven events this week, not a single one of them was won by the Aeldari. I’m sure terrible vengeance is being plotted within the Craftworlds even now, but lets enjoy their time out of the sun and take a look at who was smashing events in their place.

Today Wings will be covering:

Team Battle Brothers 40k Major GT (major)
The San Antonio Shootout ‘23 (major)
Rumble on the Rivers 2023 Warhammer 40K Super Major (major)
The Gravel Pit GT2
The Harvester Of Souls – 13th Annual Warhammer 40,000 Grand Tournament

On Friday we’ll have Lowest of Men looking at:

The Coventry Super-Major (3-Day)
The Coventry Super-Major (2-Day)
Bash At The Beach GT Presented By “By Brush and Bolter” Hosted By Level Up Gaming
The Great Game – Gongaii GT Fall 2023
Iron Man 1 day GT
Game Centre Narellan First Gt

Team Battle Brothers 40k Major GT

90-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Carthage, NC, US on November 11 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Steven Saroka – Thousand Sons (Cult of Magic) – 1st Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Character/Rubric Spam

Thoughts

As seems to be increasingly popular for Thousand Sons, this build eschews any of the crunchier non-Magnus stuff like Mutalith Vortex Beasts and Scarab Occults in favour of going wide with Rubricae, some supporting Tzaangors and lots of Characters. That ensures there are always plenty of Cabal points to play with, loads of Devastating Wounds output, and plenty of redundancy. Add in some extra nasty combos like the Arcane Vortex Infernal Master for big damage on Overwatch and you’ve got the tools to take on all-comers – if you play your cards right to avoid getting bowled over at any point. Clearly Steven managed just that, so big congratulations!

Mark Hertel – Ultramarines (Gladius Task Force) – 2nd Place (Undefeated)

The List

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Archetype

Land Raider Spam

Thoughts

Yes, haha yes. I waxed lyrical about this build last week and great news – it still kicks ass, and it’s great seeing Mark put in an undefeated major run with it. Huge congratulations!

John Casey – Chaos Space Marines (Slaves to Darkness) – 3rd Place

The List

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Archetype

Brawler Goodstuff with Rubricae

Thoughts

Lots of the standard Brawler Goodstuff tools, one spicy addition in the form of two units of Rubricae loaded for Overwatch. This gives the list a nice bit of extra counterplay to deploy both against Aeldari Aspect Warriors and the mirror, which seems like a sharp choice. Admittedly John’s one loss was to Aeldari, but even there he ran them very close, making this look a very potent addition that’s been well rewarded!

Jeff Payne – Aeldari (Battle Host) – 4th Place

The List

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Archetype

Avatar and Hulls

Thoughts

Jeff takes up the gauntlet of trying to ensure every Aeldari unit features in at least one top four build before someone finally nukes the book from orbit and starts again from the rocks, packing a Wraithlord as a secondary mid-table piece alongside the Avatar, with Illic and a full Ranger squad also present to dance about via Phantasm and the Rangers’ built-in move. That provides plenty of keepaway for the Fire Prisms to do their work, and leaves plenty of points for smaller hulls and Aspect Warriors for scoring. Mostly the usual past the extra robot then, but I do love Wraithlords, so thumbs up to Jeff.

The Best of the Rest

There were 9 more players on 4-1 records. They were:

5th – Alex Ramsey – Aeldari: Spinners and Wraithguard.
6th – Mate Csaszar – Adeptus Mechanicus: Triple Manipulus/Breacher block plus lots of single Dragoons and Ironstriders, finished off with Skitarii in boats.
7th – Brendan Roy – Grey Knights: Paladin brick, MSU Terminators and herohammer.
8th – Blue Ford – Orks: Trukk spam with other speedy backup.
9th – Preston Southan – T’au Empire: One big Crisis team, two smaller ones, and lots of supporting hulls/smaller suits, with Shadowsun and Farsight buddy-copping at the top.
10th – Jeremy Knox – Aeldari: Double Avatar with Spinners.
11th – Scott Byam – Chaos Daemons: Monster mash with Be’lakor, Shalaxi and Kairos backed up by two Pink Horror blocks.
12th – Andrew Vawter – Ultramarines (Ironstorm Spearhead): Buddy cop shenanigans from Calgar and Guilliman, Calgar running with the interesting new (and honestly pretty scary) choice of Company Heroes. Lots of Redemptors in support, plus a Reaper for stratagem shenanigans using all of Calgar’s CP.
13th – Larry Oliver – Tyranids (Vanguard Onslaught): Double Genestealer Vanguard, with lots of Exocrines and Maleceptors providing some heft.

The San Antonio Shootout ‘23

61-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in San Antonio, TX, US on November 11 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Georg Bobkov – Chaos Space Marines (Slaves to Darkness) – 1st Place

The List

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Archetype

Double Commune Brawler Goodstuff

Final Round Matchup

100 – 86 Victory against Travis Gray – World Eaters (Berzerker Warband).

Thoughts

The Chaos ascension continues here, with another great showing for one of their best builds. Most of this is standard stuff, the only interesting exception being the use of Masters of Possession instead of Chaos Lords. Seems interesting and pretty plausible – you lose a bit of raw melee power and free Profane Zeals in favour of a small boost to each of speed, durability and ranged output. I can definitely see that working – realistically in the mirror whichever side swings first in melee probably flattens the other, so swapping to something a bit more techy might give you an our at a crucial moment. It clearly paid off too – Georg hammered home just what this army can do in the right hands with a perfect 500VP over five rounds.

Apollo Chang – Aeldari (Battle Host) – 2nd Place (Undefeated)

The List

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Archetype

Wraithguard and Spinners

Thoughts

Hey I didn’t promise there would be no undefeated Aeldari players, just that they didn’t win any events. Read the small print. I’m afraid beyond flippant jokes I have nothing left to say about this list – this is pretty much what I’d expect WingsGPT to output if you asked it for the most reliably great Aeldari list right now. Still, this week may very well have given us the lowest number of undefeated Aeldari players relative to the number of events all edition, so congratulations to Apollo for keeping the mon-keigh on their toes.

Travis Gray – World Eaters (Berzerker Warband) – 3rd Place

He just wanted to kill guys with his axe, is that too much to ask? Credit: Swiftblade

The List

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Archetype

Character-Heavy World Eaters

Thoughts

Another showing for the formula that’s pushing World Eaters over the top right now. A deep pool of Characters ensures that the second wave of Berzerkers out of Rhinos is usually capable of sweeping up whatever the opponent has left after the Eightbound and Angron have done their wicked work. It is extremely uncomplicated, but it’s so fast and lethal that it’s a force to be reckoned with, here only taken down by Georg’s Chaos Space Marines in the final (and boy is this a matchup where Warpflamers can sometimes come in clutch). Well done to Travis.

Vyasar Ganesan – Tyranids (Assimilation Swarm) – 4th Place

The List

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Archetype

Assimilation Monster Mash

Thoughts

Fair play to Vyasar here – I would not have expected to see an Assimilation Swarm list making a top four any time soon. The detachment suffers from being cool but narrow in what units it works with, and this build goes all-in on making the most of it, taking literally ever HARVESTER unit it can, providing it with pretty deep pools of healing. It combines that with some nasty larger units like the big Zoanthrope block and the Swarmlord with six Tyrant Guard. Rolling the latter around with a trio of Haruspexes is a genuinely daunting prospect for most armies to take down, and I think it honestly does a decent job into the Chaos Space Marine builds via a combination of redundancy and being able to just roll over smaller brawler units. Aeldari is the predator it still needs to watch out for, and it was Apollo’s Fire Prisms that finally put paid to the Tyranid rampage, but in the (admittedly somewhat unlikely) event of Aeldari continuing to drop off a bit, this actually seems alarmingly plausible. Massive props for throwing the curveball of the week here.

The Best of the Rest

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

5th – Noah Pope – Aeldari: Yncarne, Spinners and Wraithguard.
6th – Nick Toomey – Adepta Sororitas: Lots of shooty hulls, a Paragon/Vahl unit and some Dominions and Arco-Flagellants.
7th – Seth Alsuleiman – Chaos Space Marines: Brawler goodstuff with a single Accursed Commune.
8th – Josh Schneider – Dark Angels (Vanguard Spearhead): Infiltrating Deathwing Knights and a big Centurion Devastator squad to zap around with Guerilla Tactics.
9th – Jacob Anglin – Death Guard: Crunchy Death Guard with Mortarion, lots of Engines, some War Dogs and a few Plague Marine units with Icons in Rhinos to be extra disruptive on objectives.
10th – Da Xie – T’au Empire: Double big Crisis brick with Shadowsun and Farsight, plus some Broadsides.

Rumble on the Rivers 2023 Warhammer 40K Super Major

60-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Fort Wayne, IN, United States on November 11 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Garrett Stacy – Death Guard (Plague Company) – 1st Place

The List

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Archetype

Deflective Death Guard

Final Round Matchup

94 – 64 Victory against Zachary Morales – Black Templars (Righteous Crusaders).

Thoughts

This is a really cool skew build – it presents a very strong defensive profile out of the gate, being all hulls, but thanks to all the Sorcerer and disembarking Plague Marines it can still get around the table pretty well, so it doesn’t sacrifice much flexibility to achieve that.

My spy network has brought me the goods once more, and we have an event report from Garrett to include – take it away:

Garrett: Death Guard, in my opinion, are in an amazing spot. They seem to line up with the 50% winrate game plan that GW wants for armies, thanks to their changes to Contagion, and have access to some great allies like Nurglings and War Dogs. My only gripe is that those are somewhat neccessary to make the army feel complete, something I hope to see change with the Codex one day!

Game 1 vs Joseph
Dark Angels Vanguard Spearhead
Round 1 I had a great game vs Joseph where I think running into my skew build showed him that he needed a bit more anti-tank. In his defense, putting 10 Deathwing Knights on the line for a turn 1 charge can be pretty scary but I planned for this and used Rhinos and Mortarion as a wall to keep my War Dogs and Plagueburst Crawlers safe. Unfortunately for Joseph, I then got the first turn, which allowest me to unpick his plan fairly swiftly.

Game 2 vs Rick
Orks

This game took place on Wargames Live (here) so I recommend going and checking it out!
But a synopsis of the game is I that ran Mortarion up protected by Plague Marines and stalled the board turn one while the Plagueburst Crawlers and War Dogs to put some good damage into him! Then on turn 2 my MVPs of the tournament came down from deep strike, and the three Sorcerors unleashing damage-boosted Curse of the Leper wiped almost all of the Nobz out in one turn, sealing the game.

Game 3 vs Sean
Leagues of Votann

Sean is a good friend and feels terrible to play him again round 3. My skew list held strong and was able to weather the storm the that the Votann unleashed in the first few turns . After that, then I tagged lots of his army with several units and picked off the Sagitaurs, which were the remaining big threats, leaving him unable to deal with my forces.

Game 4 vs Stevin
Black Templars Righteous Crusaders

Stevin’s list didn’t really have the strength to handle my list, which put him on the back foot right out of the gate. He put up a good fight, but was unable to kill most of my vehicles, allowing me to inexorably advance up the table and wither him down. Once again the Sorcerers were my MVPs, wiping out Helbrecht and most of his unit.

Game 5 vs Jaguar
Black Templars Righteous Crusaders

We met at top table on Wargames Live (here) so go check it out there for more info. I was a bit worried about this game, so ended up making some pretty bold plays, as you might have seen. I set up two War Dogs on the line and could have easily been blown away by 2 gladiators but it paid off and I went first. I don’t know if I’d ever recommend doing this again, and even though it worked out here I’d probably play them safer if I did it again. I also used Mortarion as bait to set up some good firing angles for my models on turn 2, and to open up some space for the Terminator Sorcerers. It worked out well, allowing me to unleash devastating damage and wipe the Land Raider, Gladiators and Helbrecht’s unit, plus start on a Crusader brick.

Turn 3 came around and I was able to finish off most of the Crusaders, and funnel his remaining forces into the middle of the table. At this point I think we saw the writing on the wall and the game basically was me shooting his Crusader bricks for the next 2 turns.

Closing Thoughts

Death guard are very strong and a skew list like mine has some real play into the meta. That said, it can struggle into some Aeldari builds, so it may not be the be-all and end-all just yet! The event was great and I can’t wait to defend my title next year at Rumble on the river! Self promotion time – come check out Skill Check, we are a YouTube channel that does live game play and tactical videos!

Wings: Thanks Garrett – great to have insights on an impressive win!

Joshua Minnich – Chaos Space Marines (Slaves to Darkness) – 2nd Place

The List

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Archetype

Brawler Goodstuff with Noise Marines

Thoughts

It’s apparently the week for solo Terminator Sorcerors and Cult Marines. Here, the usual Brawler suspects are augmented with an especially loud party bus full of Noise Marines and a Sorceror to pop in from Deep Strike and amp up either their volume shooting or the onslaught of Accursed Cultists/Chosen with boosted AP. Seems neat, helps a lot if it runs into something like Grey Knights or Dark Angels, and another neat spin on the powerful Brawler core, great stuff from Joshua.

Folger Pyles – Aeldari (Battle Host) – 3rd Place

The List

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Archetype

Avatar and Wraithguard

Thoughts

Another one of those armies where the title does all the work for me. No notes. Good job Folger.

Jake Gray – Astra Militarum (Combined Regiment) – 4th Place

The List

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Archetype

Combined Arms

Thoughts

To finish our third top four we’ve got another build leaning on transports to give it some durability out of the gate, and because it’s a guard list it follows that with some big guns to pound the enemy into dust. I honestly kind of love how normal this build looks while still functioning effectively – you could tell someone this was a narrative armoured company army and I don’t think they’d raise too much of an eyebrow, but it’s got mobility, durability and punch, letting it tangle with popular builds and put in a defiant showing for the forces of humanity. It did have a deeply unfortunate accident involving an Acastus Knight as its one loss, but even there it didn’t put up a bad score, and I suspect the fact that the list has a good deal of redundancy to fall back on helped there and in its four victories. Well done to Jake for flying the flag for the Astra Militarum.

The Best of the Rest

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

5th – Jimmy Borovilos – Aeldari: Double Avatar Wraithguard.
6th – Conan Jennings – World Eaters: The full anti-herohammer spectrum, Berzerkers and plenty of Eightbbound.
7th – Zachary Morales – Black Templars (Righteous Crusaders): Double Primaris Crusader brick, plus a Redeemer Sword Brethren party bus.
8th – Evan McMillin – Chaos Space Marines: Abaddon Gunline.
9th – Sean Martin – Leagues of Votann: Lots of Sagitaurs plus two full Heathguard units.

The Gravel Pit GT2

55-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in England, GB on November 11 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Aiden Smalley – Death Guard (Plague Company) – 1st Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

All-rounder Death Guard

Final Round Matchup

98 – 50 Victory against Matt Charles – Blood Angels (Ironstorm Spearhead).

Thoughts

A second event win for Death Guard here, the power of the (extremely stinky) party bus getting them over the line again. Between the Putrifier/Plague squads in the Rhinos and the nasty Terminator units waiting in the sky there’s a tonne of nasty surprises this army can spring on foes, and it once again exposes a uniform and crunchy attack surface out the gate for opposing onslaughts to bounce off. It’s taken a few months for players to fully get to grips with them, but I think we can safely say at this point that Death Guard are the real deal, and well done to Aidan for bringing Nurgle’s gifts to yet more foes.

Doug Tabor – Leagues of Votann (Oathband) – 2nd Place (Undefeated)

The List

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Archetype

Sagitaur Spam

Thoughts

Continuing our pleasingly broad range of strong showings we’ve got Votann, riding around in lots of tiny cars, blasting out rock music and also bullets. Whatever gets baited out to deal with them or the bikes has to face a full Hearthguard bomb coming in or Beserks counter-charging, and on top of that this build has the more unique option of taking a full Thunderkyn unit with a Grim Demeanor Iron Master, which certainly seems pretty cool, providing you with some very reliable and broadly effective shooting output even if what you need to kill isn’t stacked with Grudge tokens or is, for example, a big unit of Lychguard. Honestly slightly surprised we don’t see that Enhancement with this unit more often, and a nice addition to the normal set of Votann toys, well rewarded with an undefeated run from Doug.

The Best of the Rest

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

3rd – Ben Jayce Ackroyd – Aeldari: Go-wide shooty toys, eschewing any Avatars in favour of big Windrider and Dire Avenger units, with Asurmen leading the latter. Still Wraithguard, obviously.
4th – Simeon Pollard – Blood Angels (Ironstorm Spearhead): Redemptor/Whirlwind gunline with a big Death Company brick and smaller jump units to keep the foe at bay.
5th – David Leniewski – Necrons: Classic Warrior/Lychguard/Doomsdays.
6th – David Irving – Salamanders (Firestorm Assault Force): Flames and hull galore, a big unit each of Aggressors and Infernus Marines with a Land Raider and Repulsor for riding around in.
7th – James Greensmith – World Eaters: Evil villains, Berzerkers, two Jakhal and Spawn units to hold the home front, and lots of Eightbound.
8th – Matt Charles – Blood Angels (Ironstorm Spearhead): Dreadnoughts for days, including a Death Company Dread. Also a Phobos Librarian for board control and lots of Plasma Inceptors.
9th – James McMurray – Death Guard: Loads of Plague Marines in Rhinos, Typhus with Deathshrouds, and triple Brigand for shooting.

The Harvester Of Souls – 13th Annual Warhammer 40,000 Grand Tournament

40-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Spokane, WA, United States on November 11 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

This event was using a mix of custom Primary objectives and Tactical Objective Secondaries.

The Showdown

Custom Mission

Riley Davis – Thousand Sons (Cult of Magic): Crunchy Thousand Sons with a Scarab brick and a Mutalith.
Army List - Click to Expand

vs.

Chuck Arnett – Leagues of Votann (Oathband): All-rounder Votann with double Land Fortress.
Army List - Click to Expand

Thoughts

So, the other Thousand Sons lists we’ve seen do well recently have mostly gone wide, but Riley’s build sticks to the more traditional crunchier options, and honestly wins pretty big on that choice in this matchup. This Votann list goes wide enough and has enough redundancy and volume that it would be comfortably able to pick apart lots of smaller units, whereas being able to push hard with the triple-whammy of Magnus, the Scarabs and the Beast might be enough to overwhelm it, especially as this particular Votann build doesn’t look to have great answers to Magnus in general.

That’s not to say it’s a sure thing mind – as far as I can tell from the event pack normal Tactical Secondaries were still in play, and the downside of the Thousand Sons going crunchy rather than wide is that it means they have fewer tools to score with. The Votann, on the other hand, have a pretty healthy supply of expendables to play with, so from their side of the table the play has got to be to initially focus on killing everything that isn’t the three heftier targets, and aim to win on points. There is a risk that the Mutalith rolls hot on Battle Shocks and scuppers that, so I’d probably still pick it as one of the Ruthless Efficiency targets just to try and force it to be a bit more cautious, hopefully minimising that risk.

Assuming the Votann go with that sort of plan I think things are pretty even here, and the score definitely reflects that. The followers of Tzeentch triumphed, but only by a hair’s breadth, so clearly they had to fight for every inch.

Result

Thousand Sons (Cult of Magic) Victory – 11 – 9

Riley Davis – Thousand Sons (Cult of Magic) – 1st Place

The List

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Archetype

Classic crunchy Tsons

Thoughts

All covered in the Showdown, which was an effective demonstration of why this plan still has legs. I do generally prefer the more go-wide Tsons builds, but there are definitely matchups where this heftier style is what you want, so as the metagame ebbs and flows I’m sure we’ll see builds like this pop up from time-to-time too. For now, great work from Riley.

The Best of the Rest

There were 4 more players on 3.5-1.5+ records (loads of draws at the top from the missions). They were:

2nd – James Marriott – Adepta Sororitas (Hallowed Martyrs): The current Sororitas standard of plenty of Battle Sisters with powerful Leaders backed by Castigators and a Paragon brick.
3rd – Scott de Wynter-Wilkie – Drukhari (Realspace Raiders): Drukhari flying circus with loads of Battleline in Transports, Ravagers and a Voidraven.
4th – Kirk Powell – Orks (Waaagh! Tribe): Forge World toys galore, with both a Kill Tank and a Gargantuan Squiggoth as centrepieces in a speedy, aggressive army.
5th – JT McDowell – Ynnari (Battle Host): Spinners and Wraithguard with some bonus Ravagers and Scourges in tow.

Wrap Up

Plenty more to come on Friday, so check back in then, and of course make sure to check out our ongoing buildup to the World Championship of Warhammer.

Competitive Innovations in 10th: The Mild Stumble of the Aeldari pt.1

Team Battle Brothers 40k Major GT

Steven Saroka – Thousand Sons (Cult of Magic) – 1st Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

Mark Hertel – Ultramarines (Gladius Task Force) – 2nd Place (Undefeated)

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

John Casey – Chaos Space Marines (Slaves to Darkness) – 3rd Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

Jeff Payne – Aeldari (Battle Host) – 4th Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

The Best of the Rest

The San Antonio Shootout ‘23

Georg Bobkov – Chaos Space Marines (Slaves to Darkness) – 1st Place

The List

Archetype

Final Round Matchup

Thoughts

Apollo Chang – Aeldari (Battle Host) – 2nd Place (Undefeated)

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

Travis Gray – World Eaters (Berzerker Warband) – 3rd Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

Vyasar Ganesan – Tyranids (Assimilation Swarm) – 4th Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

The Best of the Rest

Rumble on the Rivers 2023 Warhammer 40K Super Major

Garrett Stacy – Death Guard (Plague Company) – 1st Place

The List

Archetype

Final Round Matchup

Thoughts

Joshua Minnich – Chaos Space Marines (Slaves to Darkness) – 2nd Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

Folger Pyles – Aeldari (Battle Host) – 3rd Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

Jake Gray – Astra Militarum (Combined Regiment) – 4th Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

The Best of the Rest

The Gravel Pit GT2

Aiden Smalley – Death Guard (Plague Company) – 1st Place

The List

Archetype

Final Round Matchup

Thoughts

Doug Tabor – Leagues of Votann (Oathband) – 2nd Place (Undefeated)

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

The Best of the Rest

The Harvester Of Souls – 13th Annual Warhammer 40,000 Grand Tournament

The Showdown

Custom Mission

Thoughts

Result

Riley Davis – Thousand Sons (Cult of Magic) – 1st Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

The Best of the Rest

Wrap Up

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