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Competitive Innovations in 10th: You Can’t Keep an Elf Down pt.1

By James "One_Wing" Grover

The post-Dataslate world beckons, and we have the first few results to look at. Today we’ve got a chaotic clash at the top, Friday…eh don’t worry about it. Don’t look at the title. Everything’s OK. Lowest of Men will tell you all about it then.

Today, I’m telling you about:

  • The Great Game – Gongaii GT Winter 2024
  • German Major Hamburg
  • Level Up Games Feb 2024 GT
  • Winter Donut 2024
  • Wettcon Vinter 2024 40k

On Friday, you’ll be getting:

  • CaptainCon 40K GT
  • Cross-Swords PAW 2024
  • I GT ACUPHAMMER
  • FWC Grand Tournament Warhammer 40K GT

This week for Showdowns we have only unleashed democracy ion the post-dataslate choices, and the results are:

  • Chaos Knights vs Death Guard at The Great Game.
  • Drukhari vs. Ultramarines at the FWC Grand Tournament

The Great Game – Gongaii GT Winter 2024 (Post-Dataslate)

34-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Forest Grove, OR, United States on February 03 2024. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Priority Targets – Chilling Rain – Crucible of Battle

Alax Henderson – Chaos Knights (Traitoris Lance): Whoops all War Dogs – actually all War Dogs now, taking out any Nurglings and swapping a few Brigands to Huntsmen to free a few points.
Army List - Click to Expand

vs.

Tanner Hebert – Death Guard (Plague Company): Brigands over here as well! Alongside them, Mortarion and two packed Rhinos form the majority of the on-board Death Guard component, and 3×3 Deathshrouds with Characters provide shock troops from reserve.
Army List - Click to Expand

Thoughts

It’s Chaos on top for our first post-Dataslate showdown, seeing Chaos Knights with relatively minor changes face off against Death Guard list that’s been tweaked a bit more. Mortarion is back (to the extent he ever left), benefitting from fully operational ignore modifiers and the toning down of Marine and Aeldari shooting, providing a central anchor and hammer for the guard. Full Plague Marine units in Rhinos are still an excessively nasty accompaniment, and are joined by newly cheaper Deathshrouds, each with a lethal character at the fore. We’ve seen solo Terminator Librarians used in Death Guard before because of how nasty they are on a go turn, but with the bodyguard now being priced to move and harder to no-sell with Damage Reduction when you bring Morty over, it makes sense to add them.

Over on the Knights side, it’s pretty much as expected – some Brigands cut back to Huntsmen, lots of Karnivores. The build is still pretty scary, but noticeably weaker, and the Brigands feel particularly bad in this game. There isn’t the critical mass of melta you’d want to swing for Mortarion and expect to reliably drop him, but most of the other stuff isn’t idea for targeting either. Meanwhile, access to Disgustingly Resilient makes the chaintalon pretty unreliable into the Terminators, potentially leading to the Knights getting bogged down. In general on that front, access to Skullsquirm Blight for the Death Guard is a huge problem for the Knights – they don’t have many re-rolls, so -1 to WS/BS up close is a massive reduction in their output, further tilting things the Death Guard’s way.

Without that, I do think the Knights would have a shot – while they have some disadvantages, the Death Guard aren’t really set up to pop lots of Knights at a distance, and clashing with a largely untouched Knights army is never exactly a safe option. However, unlike in most sitautions I think there’s a good chance that the attrition when that clash occurs narrowly favours the guard, particularly with Mortarion on the prowl. Add in this being a mission where it’s pretty easy to lock in a high Primary score, and even a very cautious Fixed plan from the Death Guard being near guaranteed to top 30VP, and I think it’s likely to be tough for the Knights to take it – they’d have to hit very hard in the key go turn to take the initiative, and the Death Guard are set up to make sure that doesn’t happen. Sure enough, while the Knight score wasn’t bad, the Guard took control of the situation and the game.

Result

Death Guard (Plague Company) Victory – 86 – 60

Tanner Hebert – Death Guard (Plague Company) – 1st Place

Credit: Robert “TheChirurgeon” Jones

The List

See Showdown

Archetype

Mortarion and Friends

Thoughts

He’s back folks. All covered in the Showdown, this list looks very nasty – great attrition, some really nasty melee hammers, backfield deep strikers that actually hit like a truck, and some great staging. Expect to see lots of this out and about, especially as I think their game into Necrons is pretty decent – access to an ignore modifiers aura is huge. Congratulations to Tanner on the win!

The Best of the Rest

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

  • 2nd – Alax Henderson – Chaos Knights (Traitoris Lance): See showdown.
  • 3rd – Jonathan Sebert – Ymyr Conglomerate (Oathband): Double Hearthguard-packed Land Fortresses, leaning on re-rolls rather than pure numbers.
  • 4th – Ryan Cherewich – Death Guard (Plague Company): Mortarion, 2x Rhinos and Deathshrouds, this time backed by Plaguebursts and the now eye-wateringly cheap Bloat-drones.
  • 5th – Lukas Troller – Goffs: Trukks and Herohammer, with the new addition of Ghaz leading a big unit of Meganobz now that Night Spinners are less terminal for them.
  • 6th – Nicolas Ohlsen-Johnson – Necrons (Hypercrypt Legion): Super top-heavy Hypercrypt, using the Silent King alongside two C’tan, a full Lokhust Destroyer unit, and two big blocks of Warriors with Szeras.

German Major Hamburg

128-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Hamburg, HH, Deutschland on February 03 2024. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

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

Credit: Wings

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Aeldari Deadstuff

Thoughts

One last time, for old time’s sake.

Well done Matthias.

Max Schierbecker – Space Wolves (Stormlance Task Force) – 2nd Place (Undefeated)

Credit: “Contemptor” Kevin Stillman

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Stormlance Thundercav

Thoughts

Unlike the Aeldari build above, this concoction is extremely live post-Dataslate, and while it still needs to find a few points for Inceptors and Scouts, it loses far less than a lot of Marine builds, and fewer Aeldari is veryt good news for it. These builds slam across the table at rocket speeds thanks to the Advance/Charge available to them, creating enough momentum that it can be really difficult for opponents to pull themselves out from under it. One of the ways you can sometimes do that from the other side is by taking fixed Assassinate, but this build goes much lighter on Characters than some variants of it, making that harder to do and avoiding giving up any outs. I also really like the use of Ulric with Blood Claws, I think he’s been a bit underexplored as a leader. Adding the possibility of Wulfen as another way of applying low-Character pressure seems great!

The only possible curveball here is how well this can deal with a resurgent Custodes, and it feels like where they fall on the good to great spectrum will have a massive impact on where Stormlance ends up. Still, it’s sitting far prettier than any of the other top four here, and I do think the exact build used does a good job of covering off a possible weakness, so hugely well done to Max.

Florian Schmidt – Adeptus Astartes (Vanguard Spearhead) – 3rd Place (Undefeated)

Marneus Calgar Credit: Alfredo Ramirez
Marneus Calgar Credit: Alfredo Ramirez

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Ultravanguard

Thoughts

We segue from one of the least impacted Marine builds straight to one of the most – this exact list style is clearly what GW were gunning for with the Marine changes, so some major updates will be needed to keep it on the table (that second squad of Centurions can go for starters). That’s not to say this won’t remain one of the better Marine builds, because what it does is still very strong, but it gets a pretty rough ride.

I do think that one choice here showcases a possible option for adaptation – combining Calgar with some Company Heroes instead of Aggressors gives you a unit that clearly isn’t as terrifying as the full Biologis blob, but it’s vastly cheaper and absolutely turbo-charges the all-purpose troubleshooter capability the Heroes bring to the table. Always nice to see a glimpse of a possible future as we say goodbye to the past, congratulations to Florian on third place

Manuel Wayand – Chaos Space Marines (Slaves to Darkness) – 4th Place (4.5-0.5)

That Gobbo

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Brawler Goodstuff

Thoughts

Another build departing for the hall of fame to round out the top four – extremely flexible melee threats staged in hard-to-shoot Rhinos, gutpunch power from Accursed Communes, highly independent shooting units – Chaos had it all, and this is a strong final outing for the toys. I suspect that until the Chaos Space Marine Codex arrives we’ll see a pivot back to Abaddon gunlines, as they can still muster up some extremely scary firepower, and he also works well with Legionaries. Land Raiders and Helbrutes to buff stuff has have turned up a few times recently also seem plausible. Clearly Tzeentch is mad that all the other Chaos Marks have gotten a lot of outings recently, and is enforcing Change. Great work from Manuel providing a big sendoff.

The Best of the Rest

There were 18 more players on 4-1+ records. They were:

  • 5th – Kayu Orellana – Tyranids (Invasion Fleet): All rounder Tyranids with a bit of everything, including a few MSUs of Raveners and a squad of Barbguants as extra utility pieces, plus the One-Eye/Dakkafex blob (which I suspect gets better when it can’t be Night Spinnered as bad. Night spun?).
  • 6th – Valentin Schefter – Necrons (Canoptek Court): Double C’tan, triple Doomstalker, triple Wraiths. Expect this to be a build that gets the theatrical boos when it wins events a month from now.
  • 7th – Nader Chamma – Grey Knights: Triple Librarian, Terminator MSUs, lots of Interceptors and the full Purifier/Crowe brick.
  • 8th – Thomas Brutscher – Goffs: Ultra-aggro Squighog spam, with some Trukks and a big Boyz unit backing them.
  • 9th – Niklas Frerichs – Adeptus Custodes: A big Allarus unit and Warden unit backed by Caladius tanks. Lost to the Stormlance Space Wolves by a razor thin margin round five, suggesting they could be a potential counter with their buffs.
  • 10th – Alexander Janzen – Chaos Space Marines: Triple Commune, triple chosen, triple nerfed.
  • 11th – David – Orks: Trukk spam with a Ghaz MSU.
  • 12th – Artur Güttler – T’au Empire: Go-wide mech Tau, just one big Crisis unit backed by Hammerheads, Breacherfish and Piranhas.
  • 13th – Niklas Fritschen – Chaos Space Marines: Shooting-heavy CSM with the full triple Forgefiend and a big Obliterator unit. Also solo Syll’Esske, RIP to a real one there.
  • 14th – Frank Pein – Asuryani: Triple Spinner Wraithguard.
  • 15th – Patrick Nemitz – Black Templars (Righteous Crusaders): Two full Primaris Crusader bricks with Helbrecht/Grimaldus, backed by triple Redemptors. Gets hit surprisingly hard by the changes, which seem to have (potentially correctly) assumed that this exact build might take over with predators removed.
  • 16th – Hannes Hoferichter – Blood Angels (Stormlance Task Force): A rare non-Space Wolves Stormlance showing, instead going for the uncomplicated plan of 3×10 Jump Pack Death Company , which seems to have worked pretty well for it!
  • 17th – Leif Westermann – Aeldari: Triple Spinner Wraithguard.
  • 18th – Philipp Janßen – T’au Empire: Triptide is inevitable, Triptide is eternal, Triptide is even better post-Dataslate, so watch for it coming to a table near you.
  • 19th – Adrian Wegener – Chaos Knights: Dogs and a few Nurglings.
  • 20th – José Kuhlmann – Adepta Sororitas: A fairly Dataslate-ready Sisters build, using just one big squad of Arco-flagellants backed by an all-rounder Sisters selection, including extra herohammer from Celestine with some Seraphim.
  • 21th – Immanuel Wolf – Astra Militarum: Loads of Bullgryn, triple Manticore and some Kasrkin, with the two most powerful Russes (TC with Demo cannon, Exterminator) to round out.
  • 22th – Paul Hilsdorf – Genestealer Cult: An extremely unusual GSC build at the end here – it starts with the stuff you’d expect (Acolytes, Neophytes) but then pivots to a bunch of tools for rushing the foes, adding Brood Brother Catachans in Chimeras to Aberrants with Infiltrate.

New rule – no five round supermajors in dataslate lame duck weeks.

Level Up Games Feb 2024 GT

40-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Duluth, GA, United States on February 03 2024. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Collin Cochran – Chaos Space Marines (Slaves to Darkness) – 1st Place

Credit: Robert “TheChirurgeon” Jones

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Abaddon Hanging Out With His Friends (look, when a list title is on point, it’s on point)

Thoughts

This build maximises Chaos’s ability to just evaporate enemies with gunfire, leaning on the extreme power of Dark Pacts, Abaddon, and Abaddon combined with Dark Pacts. While the tools here do go up in cost, I think this plan probably is where Chaos ends up in the short term, especially as I think the departure of Aeldari is going to make players be a bit more greedy with taking big, juicy targets. What I’m saying is that I expect to see a lot more of Abaddon Hanging Out With His Friends, perhaps even in the hands of Collin.

The Best of the Rest

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

  • 2nd – Jareth Chapman – Black Templars (Righteous Crusaders): Another list where the title of “Sword Bro Party Buses” should clue you in to the plan, though it sort of undersells the presence of 40 Primaris Crusaders.
  • 3rd – Seth Piper – Cult Mechanicus (Skitarii Hunter Cohort): 6/3 Breachers, lots of Ironstriders, one big unit of Sydonians, and a tonne of small Skitarii units of various types to cause mischief/score points.
  • 4th – Noah Neundorfer – Thousand Sons (Cult of Magic): A fairly crunchy Tsons build with 10/10/5 Rubricae alongside Magnus and a Mutalith, with Spawn and Tzaangors to fill.
  • 5th – Zachary Jeppesen – Orks: Trukk spam.
  • 6th – Matt Trebuchon – Chaos Space Marines: An Abaddon gunline going wider than normal by bringing Venomcrawlers, which feels like it’s got to be worth a look post-Dataslate, though I’d guess you probably end up just paying 10pts more for a Predator Destructor.

Winter Donut 2024

34-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Тюмень, Тюменская обл., Россия on February 03 2024. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Alex Voronkov – Necrons (Canoptek Court) – 1st Place

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

Triple C’tan Canoptek

Thoughts

Again, be prepared for builds like this to be a major part of the metagame for a while, and if I had to guess I’d say triple C’tan variants like this probably get better as they’re a bit harder for the metagame to adapt to (unless Trajann just decides to punt them back between the stars forever). I definitely prefer double Wraiths to triple, and this just looks like a particularly great build all-round, good work Alex.

The Best of the Rest

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

  • 2nd (4.5-0.5) – Андрей Островский – Space Wolves (Ironstorm Spearhead): Dreadnought-tastic Ironstorm with three Redemptors and two Brutalis, finishing off with a RepEx and Bjorn.
  • 3rd – Nikolai Strahov – Death Guard (Plague Company): Double Land Raider Death Guard, packing each with Plague Marines and backing with Predator Destructors, Helbrutes and Plaguebursts.
  • 4th – Max Ershov – Chaos Space Marines (Slaves to Darkness): Abaddon gunline.
  • 5th – Vasiliy Golik – Necrons (Hypercrypt Legion): Reserve shooting skew, taking a mighty three Doom Scythes despite their high price point, alongside a Monolith and full Lokhust unit.
  • 6th – Maxim Bobrov – Asuryani: Double Avatar and Prisms.

Wettcon Vinter 2024 40k

28-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Jönköpings län, Sverige on February 03 2024. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Johannes Einemo – Cult Mechanicus (Skitarii Hunter Cohort) – 1st Place

Skitarii Marshal
Skitarii Marshal. Credit: Pendulin

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Aggro Cohort

Thoughts

Turns out that Sydonian Dragoons with built-in Advance/Charge work pretty well in the “pressure Skitarii” detachment. More on this as it develops. Seriously though – this build looks genuinely challenging to deal with, as it pushes enough stuff up the table to deny Primary early, has masses of quality scoring units to score its own Secondaries, and can throw enough punches between stacked buffs on Fire Supported Vanguard and the charges from the Dragoons to take out at least the first few waves of enemy toys. That will often be enough to build a pretty insurmountable lead, and woe betide anyone who underestimates it. Congratulations to Johannes.

The Best of the Rest

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

  • 2nd – Mattias Levin – Chaos Space Marines (Slaves to Darkness): Brawler goodstuff.
  • 3rd – Christer Johannesson – Aeldari (Battle Host): Lots of different shooty/scoring pieces, the Avatar, and 10 Wraithguard.
  • 4th – Micke Björeling – Chaos Knights (Traitoris Lance): Dogs.

Wrap Up

That’s it till Friday, and this weekend we have the first post-Dataslate supermajor at Beachhead in the UK, so we’ll have plenty to unpack next week. Say hi if you’re at Beachhead, otherwise see you next wednesday.

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