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Competitive Innovations in 9th: A Short Breather

By James "One_Wing" Grover

After an absolutely relentless few months of events, the Easter weekend has finally been a bit quieter, with only one major firing and no events crossing the GT threshold. That happily means that I don’t have to muster up too much to say about the top lists of the current metagame when the Balance Dataslate is presumably on our doorstep, but as always when things are a bit quieter I’m open to casting the net just a little bit wider, and one of our eagle-eyed Patrons suggested that we spotlight a two-day event that was just shy of the GT threshold that took place in Ukraine over the weekend, which feels like a good one to spotlight!

That means that today we’re looking at:

  • Gothcon 40K Open (major)
  • Renaissance

Hopefully next week we’ll be analysing results with the juicy details of the Dataslate in hand – see you then.

Gothcon 40k Open

63-player, 6-round Grand Tournament in Västra Götalands län SE on April 07 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

This event used 20-0 scoring.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission – Secure Missing Artefacts

Olof Svensson – Dark Angels: Deathwing/Ravenwing mix, with two units of Black Knights providing some mobile melee punch.
Army List - Click to Expand

vs.

Eirik Eirik – Leagues of Votann: Ymyr 2Fort with a unit of Hearthkyn split into Sagitaurs.
Army List - Click to Expand

Thoughts

Two absolutely grind-tastic lists face off here in what promises to be a real tussle over who can better line up key targets. Both sides have some tools that the other is not well equipped to deal with – the Land Fortresses are a nightmare for the Dark Angels to deal with unless they roam within Thunder Hammer distance, but it is going to take a long time for the Votann to clear out the Deathwing blobs in turn unless the Hearthguard spike when fishing for Mortals. The Votann are going to fare a bit better at clearing out the Ravenwing, but their own bikers face a pretty rough time from the Talonmasters, so any advantage they build up isn’t going to stick around forever.

My rough expectation here is that the Votann can expect to pull ahead on killing stuff early, but as the game progresses and the big Deathwing units dominate more and more of the board their job starts to get substantially harder, and the fact that the Marine Secondary game is probably better starts to really bite. The threat of bikers swooping in and punking Eliminators does make Stubborn Defiance a bit less good than it could be, but I think there’s a real argument that the Marines are happy to take a reliable ten from it by just parking a Deathwing unit on the point and daring the Votann to come deal with it (and if they have to also overcommit to try and clear bikers early, then bonus. Combine that with Banners and either Oaths or Codex Warfare (which the Talonmasters can gradually rack up), or just take those three, and you have a strong route to a decent passive score, where the Votann’s options are distinctly less great. Ancestors feels absurdly risky against so many strong Characters and hard to shift bricks, and Lay Claim feels like you’re gambling a lot on going second. Banners is probably decent for them too, and their list is pretty well set up for Engage, but third options are tough unless they absolutely body the Marines.

I think they probably have to just pick No Prisoners and fully lean in on that? They definitely should be able to speedly clear out the non-Terminator parts of the Dark Angels list, and from there can try to focus on clearing the Terminators as quickly as possible. Playing Primary denial without tabling the Dark Angels is nearly impossible on this mission given that they can get 45pts just by sitting on two objectives for five turns, and they win if the Secondaries stay purely passive, so you’re going to have to just murder them to overcome that. The Dark Angels, in their turn, probably want to avoid committing too hard with their Black Knights until the Votann go for a swing at one of the big Deathwing units, trying to maximally chew through bikes and Sagitaurs to reduce the killing power the Votann have to work with.

The presence of the Hearthguard does feel like it gives the Votann a shot at pulling this off, as if they full fish and drop half a Terminator squad that can plausibly let them get the job done fast enough for it to count, probably using the two split halves of the Hearthkyn to try and play denial in the late game once the Marines are thin on the ground. It looks like they had a serious go at it, because this game ended up as a draw, which I can only imagine involved a lot of dead Dark Angels, but not quite enough to overcome the scoring advantage, which on event-long aggregate also gave the Space Marines the win on battle points.

Result

Draw! – 10 – 10

Olof Svensson – Dark Angels – 1st Place

Credit: Greg Chiasson

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Mixed Dark Angels

Thoughts

I have nothing left to say about this style of build that could not be more accurately expressed by some theatrical booing. I guess I do like the Black Knights more in a world with Desolation Squads, as they can use The Hunt to get right up into the opponent’s face out of the gate, and are very well tooled for killing other Marines. Other than that, business as usual, well done to Olof for getting in a big pre-dataslate victory.

Sebastian Larsson – Chaos Knights – 2nd Place

War Dog - Brigand. Credit: Rockfish
War Dog – Brigand. Credit: Rockfish

The List

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Archetype

Herpetrax War Dog Spam

Thoughts

Herpetrax performing well is no huge surprise, as a few extra wounds can go a long way in this metagame, but the weapon loadouts here are somewhat unusual. Rather than building for massed melta at range and flexibility up close, this build focused on taking high rate-of-fire chaincannons for the shooting component, and using slaughterclaws as the answer to larger targets. That’s going to serve it well if it runs into Rogal Dorns, where the T9 is otherwise a bit of a nightmare, and also prepares it well for any encounters with GSC, which it can go through like a hot knife. Interesting little meta choice, and great work from Sebastian to take this faction to second place.

Jonathan Sleigh-johnson – Iron Hands Successors – 3rd Place

Desolation Squad in the scheme of the Rainbow Warriors
Desolation Squad by Craig “MasterSlowPoke” Sniffen

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Shooty Iron Hands Successors

Thoughts

*Theatrical booing intensifies*

(Well done Jonathan, another great performance!)

Eirik Eirik – Leagues of Votann – 4th Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Ymyr 2Fort

Thoughts

Mostly see showdown, but worth highlighting the use of a split Hearthkyn squad in sagitaurs, which is showing up in more and more lists as players look for a way to stash some ObSec that can’t be cleared out easily by indirect. A particularly well-honed Votann list all round, and great stuff to make it all the way to the top table!

The Best of the Rest

There were 5 more players on 4.5-1.5 or better, which is where I’m going to cut this (lots of draws on the top tables, so it’s a weird one).

  • 5th – Sebastian Kruuse – Iron Hands: Actual Iron Hands spamming Land Speeders, Storm Speeders and Gladiators.
  • 6th – Jonatan Holm – Imperial Knights: All-Armiger Freeblade Lance, adding Mysterious Guardian Helverins to the normal recipe.
  • 7th – Mikael Christensson – Tau Empire: Heavily mechanised Farsight Enclaves, running three Hammerheads and a lot of Breachers/Pathfinders in Devilfish.
  • 8th – Rasmus Haglund – Astra Militarum: Speedy Russes, running Swift as the Wind and Heirloom Weapons with eight Russ hulls.
  • 9th – Rasmus Valand Fredriksen – Drukhari & Harlequins: All-rounder Drukhari Goodstuff with lots of Incubi and Grotesques, plus a tiny Harlequin patrol to unlock Warpcraft Secondaries.

Renaissance

24-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Черкаси, Черкаська область Україна on April 08 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Corvidae Dante – Emperor’s Children – 1st Place

Credit: Robert “TheChirurgeon” Jones

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Final Round Matchup

96-68 Victory vs. Maxim Pidbilskyi – Blood Angels

Archetype

Noise Marine Spam

Thoughts

OK this list fully made me laugh out loud when I opened it. Everyone’s moved away from Noise Marines in a post Armour of Contempt world, but what if you just…didn’t? And in fact ran significantly more? It’s a lot more fragile than it was, certainly, but you’ve still got extremely reliable chip damage from all the blastmasters, tonnes of ObSec, and a very nasty pair of characters between Lucius and the Daemon Prince, and with cunning use of terrain that can be pretty strong, especially with improved Secondaries. I very much like taking power fists in lots of the squads too, as it keeps them active in more phases and helps if, for example, you need to bully charge some Russes. Big fan of just going for it when times are tough for your faction – well done Corvidae.

The Best of the Rest

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

  • 2nd – Андрей Баль – Orks: Goff pressure with Kill Rigs and lots of Stormboyz.
  • 3rd – Kirill Husiatyn – Grey Knights: Prescient Brethren Dreadknights and Interceptors with a lone Mysterious Guardian Helverin to get extra shots in.
  • 4th – Vlad Krystuyk – Ynnari: An ultra-themed Ynnari list, taking all three of the named Characters, a tonne of Aspect Warrior MSUs, and backup from some Wyches and D-Cannons.

Wrap Up

Calm never lasts in these parts – expect a return to massive floods of events next week as we try to work out which builds will survive the Balance Dataslate, and whether it’s introduced any Warhammer Fest Wildcards.

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