The UK scene has fully re-opened and the US scene is going from strength to strength, and those two factors have combines to give us what I believe is our single biggest weekend of events since this column started.

Obviously we want to cover and spotlight as much as possible, so I’ve once again reached out to the rest of the GH team for some backup, and also put some thought into how we can maximise the coverage of what’s out there to ensure nothing is missed.

For this week, what that means is as follows:

• Today Robert “TheChirurgeon” Jones will be joining in to cover the Lone Star Open, which he atended, while I take a look at the largest event outside that  supermajor from each of the UK and US, which are the Kent Wargames GT and the WCG and CWG Major.
• Tomorrow current ITC number 5 James “Boon” Kelling will be breaking down the lists from the other US Major, the Renegade Summer Meltdown, and I’ll be taking a full look at the 1st place lists from the remaining three GT+ events (Overcharged Plasma GT, Imps Gaming GT and Badger Brawl), and covering the remaining top builds in the lightning round/Best of the Rest format.

As ever when we shake up the format a bit, do let us know what you think, because as the number of events inexorably increases we’re going to need to continue looking for ways to make this format stretch to cover the breadth of the scene. With that out the way, on to the first set of lists!

Lone Star Open

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

John Lennon – Adepta Sororitas – 1st Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

The Standout Features

• Morvenn Vahl to lead the whole thing
• Celestine and her posse
• Two units of Seraphim loaded up with four hand flamers each
• Two units of Retributors mixing heavy flamers and multi-meltas
• Order of the Ebon Chalice as the Order pick for better flamers and miracle dice
• The Battle Sanctum makes a triumphant return at an event with player-placed terrain

Why it’s Interesting in 9th

Coming in hot with the Adepta Sororitas’ first win at a Major, John Lennon shows us that the new Codex has plenty of play at the upper levels of competition. And lest you think that Lennon dodged the tough meta matchups en route to the finals, Lennon’s Sisters beat Drukhari in round 2, then beat Admech players four times before the final round, including two games against Colin McDade, which he split with a loss in round six and a win in the single-elimination finals bracket in round 8. Even then, his sole loss was a close game in which he still scored 79 points to McDade’s 90.

Lennon’s list looks a lot like the one Jack Harpster piloted to a 2nd place finish just a few weeks ago at the Bold City Freedom Fisticuffs GT, trading out Argent Shroud for Order of the Ebon Chalice, which gives them the benefit of two sacred rites chosen each game and a ton more variance smoothing with Miracle Dice thanks to the ability to discard a die to turn one Miracle Dice into a 6 and the Terrible Knowledge Warlord Trait, which gives you an auto 6 on your first miracle dice of the game and the ability to regen command points – Lennon has trait on his Dogmata here. Ebon Chalice also offers the Cleansing Flames Stratagem to push said hand and heavy flamers to 16″ and drop extra mortal wounds on their target, which works well on either the Seraphim with hand flamers or the Retributors’ Heavy flamers. Where Lennon’s list differs from Harpster’s however is in trading four of the heavy flamers for multi-meltas, giving him a significantly better punch against vehicles, and trading a third unit of Retributors for two units of Order of the Bloody Rose Zephyrim, who can be a real pain in the ass for Skitarii, since they’ll reliably make charges out of deep strike and can much even Lucius Rangers with AP-4 attacks on the charge that cut right through both the benefits of Heavy Cover and the Lucius Dogma and put the Skitarii on their 6+ invulnerable saves.

The other notable thing here is the Battle Sanctum. The biggest problem with the Sanctum is that normally the rules require it be deployed more than 3″ away from other terrain features, which can make it almost impossible to deploy on tournament tables with dense terrain. This wasn’t an issue for the Lone Star Open, which had players placing terrain on their side of each table, allowing them to make space for their fortifications before deployment began. This essentially makes the piece of terrain usable without necessarily having a TO rule an exception on the rules for placing fortifications, and it gives the army one more piece of Obscuring terrain to hide behind, with the added bonus of giving you an action to generate extra Miracle Dice in a pinch if the unit hiding in it isn’t doing much otherwise.

Secondary-wise, the list has a ton of options without having to rely on kill secondaries – it can easily make plays on Retrieve Octarius Data and Engage on All Fronts in games where it needs to use its mobility to play around an opponent, but it can also comfortably control most of the board and in many games Lennon ended up taking one or both of Raise the Banners High and Stranglehold. In many ways the decision to take Stranglehold is as much strategic as it is about scoring – by signaling that you intend to hold three of the map’s objectives each turn (and score if they don’t also control at least three in return), you can force your opponent to come out and meet you, moving into your threat range. To the Last is also a fine option here, and taking that means your opponent will have to kill Vahl (whose VEHICLE keyword helps her avoid Enriched Rounds), Celestine and her tag-alongs, and the relatively tough unit of Celestan Sacresants, who can hide in the Battle Sanctum, where they enjoy the benefits of light cover or just be completely hidden (via its obscuring rule) until it’s time for them to wander out and fight things.

In all, this is a list that probably presents the best chance to take on the Adeptus Mechanicus lists running wild, and it doesn’t fare poorly against Drukhari, either. It’s packing a lot of great tricks and will be remarkably consistent game-to-game.

Sean Nayden – Aeldari – 2nd Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

The Standout Features

• Nayden trades out Drukhari for Harlequins this time
• Three units of Dark Reapers to crack open vehicles and heavy infantry
• Two units of Shadow Spectres
• Tons of mobility between the Starweavers, Shining Spears, Swooping Hawks, and Shadow Spectres
• A trio of Shadow weaver platforms to take out pesky infantry

Why it’s Interesting in 9th

Nayden’s been working on a Craftworlds solution to the meta for some time, though previously he’d been mixing in a detachment of Drukhari to get the benefit of Dark Technomancers liquifiers and Cronos. With those off the table he’s now looking at some alternative builds. The core of the list is much the same, relying on some of the incredible shooting Craftworlds Eldar can push out with an added boost from Expert Crafters and Masterful Shots, which cranks up the deadliness another notch. The result is an incredibly fast, deadly army that can quickly capture objectives and can spend the first turn hiding with most of the army off the table waiting to drop in and murder things.

Supporting the Craftworlds contingent is a detachment of Harlequins replacing the Drukhari, with two Troupes in Starweavers, a Troupe Master, and a Death Jester for support. The Jester can pin enemy units down with Humbling Cruelty and use the Domino Shroud to zip across the table and capture objectives or contest them during an opponent’s turn. The result is a list that can move anywhere it wants and effectively score Engage on All Fronts or Stranglehold in games, and could potentially have a decent To the Last play if it weren’t for that 147-point Troupe unit – this was apparently something Nayden misplayed during the event, instead nominating the Night Spinner as the third unit (something Nayden claims was the result of last-minute wargear changes that left him unaware he’d priced the Troupe higher than the spinner). With fewer Harlequins’ Caresses in the unit, their costs drops a few points, and the list can run the Night Spinner, Support Weapons, and 8 Shadow Spectres as its TTL units, giving it some very difficult to kill targets for opponents to try and bring down.

Colin McDade – Adeptus Mechanicus – 3rd Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

The Standout Features

• Just a buttload of Vanguard and Rangers
• Some Fulgurite Electro-Priests in Duneriders
• 6 Ballistari decked out with Lascannons
• A unit of Serberys to harrass enemy units and capture objectives

Why it’s Interesting in 9th

McDade’s essentially running ta variation on the list Ben Cherwien ran two weeks ago, running 80 Skitarii to take advantage of one of the game’s most potent and undercosted units. The big difference here is that post-FAQ McDade has traded out the Sterilyzors for some Serberys Raiders and a squad of Infiltrators, giving him some additional ability to harass enemy units and disrupt their plans.  Otherwise, all the standard tricks are here – the Solar Blessing Dogma remains stupidly powerful – particularly with the abundance of Heavy Cover offered by the event’s terrain rules – and the Skitarii themselves make good use of the Enriched Rounds and Galvanic Volley Fire stratagems for firepower and mobility through Solar Flare and Legio Teleportarium. Electro-priests and Duneriders helps this list tech for objective play in the mirror – the Priests ability to drop a bunch of mortals into opposing Skitarii blocks circumvents the defences of Lucius and Bulwark Doctrina, making a move to the centre much higher risk for the opponent. Thanks to Lucius making Duneriders very resilient to chip damage, they’ll need real firepower (probably from Ironstriders) pointed at them to get them off the table, and any shots that go at them are shots that aren’t going into the list’s own Ironstriders, helping win the damage race.

Marshall Peterson – Necrons – 4th Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

The Standout Features

• Four squads of Immortals, skipping the large blobs of warriors that typically power infantry-heavy Necron lists
• Two big units of Lychguard with shields that can be incredibly tough to kill and can power out 10 points for To the Last
• A Transcendent C’Tan ready to lob Thunderbolts and Falling Stars
• A Lokhust Lord sporting a Res Orb

Why it’s Interesting in 9th

Marshall’s list is built similarly to the top 4 list we saw from Boyd Morall a few weeks ago, focusing on heavy-hitting melee units and scarab swarms powered by the Relentlessly Expansionist and Eternal Conquerors traits – the tandem gives them a 6″ pregame move and Objective Secured – and helps mitigate a lot of the issues that units like Lychguard might otherwise have due to being pretty slow. The list trades the Nightbringer for the Transcendent C’Tan with Cosmic Tyrant, keeping the C’Tan power output but trading off some melee prowess for an extra 100 points that are put to use on an extra squad of Immortals, giving the list more bodies to hold objectives with. The list also trades out the Canoptek Wraiths for the slower but more durable and more dangerous Lychguard, doubling up on a pretty nasty threat. The idea is still to take a semi-flexible mix of different melee threats to maximize value on a per-situation basis. The list also benefits significantly from the other top factions’ (admech, drukhari, sororitas) inability to throw out mortal wounds in the psychic phase – something that may not continue being viable once Orks are out.

The Rest of the Best

• 5th – Peyton Preece – Drukhari: Peyton’s Drukhari list goes hard on Dark Technomancers Cronos and character upgrades, gambling that the additional power will overcome starting on 5 CP. The list also includes Hellions to harass objective-holding units that are susceptible to D2 attacks.
• 6th – Oliver Smith – White Scars: Oliver’s Troops-less list goes hard on dangerous threats, and pairs Volkite Contemptors with big blobs of Vanguard Veterans.
• 7th – Matthew Geyer – Adeptus Mechanicus: Matthew makes some less-common decisions, going harder on vehicle threats in his Admech list with 8 Ironstriders and two Skorpius destroyers, plus a pair of Stratoraptors and Serberys units. It’s an incredibly mobile list that matches well into vehicle-heavy lists looking to play around Drukhari and Enriched Rounds.
• 8th – Tyler Johnson – Drukhari: The most striking thing about Tyler’s list is that it packs a pair of Voidraven bombers, which can drop a significant number of mortal wounds on the table during the movement phase. This, coupled with the list’s Hellions and Mandrakes, makes it even more mobile than a traditional Drukhari list.

WCG & CWG Major

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

Mark Hertel – Adeptus Mechanicus – 1st Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

The Standout Features

• A first showing for the Veteran Cohort, taking down a GT as Mars.
• Relatively small numbers of Veteran Troops, with most points invested in other tools.
• Warlord trait and relic both on display, providing discounts and control.

Why it’s Interesting in 9th

Mark Hertel needs no introduction as an AdMech master, and here he is showcasing a new build unlocked by the Book of Fire – the Veteran Cohort. Combining even more powerful basic Skitarii (at a price) with some powerful extra tricks from the Army of Renown’s stratagem sheet seems to have been a winning combination, so lets break it down.

The first important thing to note is that this build is at least somewhat distinct from the Lucius hordes we’ve been seeing. The extra price on the core Skitarii means that, although they get significant benefit from the Cohort, you generally want a small number of them and then to invest the majority of your points into other units that get benefits for free. In this build, that takes the form of only buying a single maxed out block of Skitarii Vanguard, and filling out other troop choices with MSUs of Rangers. That makes a lot of sense – Enriched Rounds is one of the swingiest tricks that Adeptus Mechanicus have access to, and because Veteran Vanguard are unaffected by Blast weaponry, only fielding a full block of them ensures that no unit in this list has full vulnerability to d6 shot Blast weapons. Finally, several of the tools available to the Veteran Cohort reward aggressive play, and Vanguard are slightly better for this than rangers because they can shoot while advancing, and sap the opponents toughness if you need to throw them into melee in an emergency.

On the subject of things that do well in melee, one of the centrepiece units here is the full Ruststalker unit. These have been seeing use in AdMech lists anyway, but the Cohort really cranks them up to 11. Adding Advance/Charge via Expedited Purge Protocol and Aggression Override to crank their attack count even higher makes them incredibly hard to avoid and hyper lethal, and a real headache to deal with. They’ve got lots of smaller units both of Ruststalkers and Infiltrators to back them up, and the combined melee threat here is considerable. The Pteraxii also start to look pretty strong once an extra attack is applied, and the flexiblity this list gives them ensures they’re still attractive even after the removal of their end of turn jump. Because the list is Mars, they’re also an excellent Wrath of Mars delivery mechanicsm, and can contribute spectacular damage by joining in on a Binharic Offensive against horde lists. With a high model count and the ability to blow Bionic Endurance in an emergency, they’re also even more likely than normal to be able to tank and trap the enemy with Deeply Sunk Talons.

At the back, two units of lascannon Ironstriders are as great as ever, in fact even better by dint of some of the what the Cohort is giving out. When something massive like a Knight absolutely, 100% needs to die, you can drop Binharic Offensive for a joicy +1 to wound enfilade, blasting pretty much anything into tiny, tiny pieces. The list can also keep one of the units permanently boosted with Bulwark Doctrina via the Cantic Thrallnet relic if needed, and has both the Logi and Artisans holy order to provide further nullification of opposing options. The Thrallnet obviously has more diverse uses in this list – thanks to the Dunerider being able to tag the DATA TETHER keyword onto the Ruststalkers, you can use it to provide them with an extra turn of Conquerer Doctrina if needed, and given they don’t really care about the drawback of that, it can further help with their lethality.

Finally, to help power all this, the Warlord trait from the Cohort is included. I wasn’t completely convinced by this in our review, as its essentially an investment of a CP to get discounts down the line, but clearly this build is consistent enough at making use of the stratagems that it consistenly pays off. Combined with having two Holy Orders as well, this lis can make its stash of CP go much further than the opponent is probably expecting.

It is good to see that, although more powerful tools is absolutely not anything AdMech needed, the Cohort is at least providing a somewhat different playstyle, favouring the buffs that Mars provides for a more elite Skitarii collection over the horde support of Lucius. We have a new contender in the AsdMech corner, and with a player of Marks’ experience piloting it, it’s sure to make even more of a splash over the next few months. Great work.

Josh Shiben – Adeptus Mechanicus – 2nd ✪ Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

The Standout Features

• A different spin on Mars that sticks to conventional Skitarii in greater numbers.

Why it’s Interesting in 9th

Our second entrant here is a much more down the line AdMech build – most of the tools on show here are going to be great surprises to anyone who’s been keeping track of how things have been going recently, and the choice of Mars over Lucius just provides some tradeoffs in how it operates. It can’t Solar Flare to pull of Vanguard nonsense out the gate but it’s got a full unit of Infiltrators ready to blow Wrath of Mars for massive damage, so it’s hardly like the opponent can rest on their laurels early on. The re-roll and Canticles of Mars also ensure that the Ironstriders are operating at maximum capacity, and the extra reliability allows the list to slightly cut down the number of las ones in favour of some more flexible autocannons.

The only real standout unit here is the Technoarchaeologist, who is presumably primarily here because he provides a way to squeeze a second Holy Order in alongside double Marshall without needing to take a second detachment. More precious CP for horrible tricks. With relatively few INFANTRY units, allowing one of the big blocks to Action while shooting is certainly not nothing either, but it feel like “cheap holy order bearer” is the main plan – and it’s a perfectly good one.

Truly the most important thing about that is that it gives me something extra to say about this list, because outside that smart move, you all know this stuff – both Skitarii strats are available to ruin the day of whichever opposing forces need it, doubling up Shroudpsalm and Conquerer Doctrina is a nightmare to deal with, and the Infiltrators are very spicy in melee as well as at range thanks to the strats they can rack up. Congratulations to Josh on an undefeated finish.

Austin Wingfield – Chaos Daemons – 3rd Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

The Standout Features

• Be’lakor leads up the most evil zentai force ever seen.
• Furies and Nurglings provide some small concessions to objective play.

Why it’s Interesting in 9th

Immediately jumping to the top of my rankings of “lists that deserve their own theme song”, we have this hilariously brutal build. Old Be’lakor did occasionally turn up alongside Greater Daemons, as handing out re-rolls of 1 to hit considerably boosts their reliability, and this army leans into that in a hilariously thematic way by running one of each, plus Shalxi and Be’lakor, for maximum daemonic force.

It’s clearly a theme list on some level, but it still demands some serious respect on the battlefield. By running the Slaanesh Daemons in a dedicated detachment they unlock their Locus, which works on Be’lakor as well thanks to him having every keyword, and that means this list has three incredibly lethal Advance/Charge threats that will be coming straight for the enemy. You can’t afford a stumble when defending against them either thanks to the Blood-blessed Bloodthirster that’s following them up. This having the “only 8 wounds per phase” rule means that if it slams into a weak part of the line on full or most of its health then there might simply be nothing the poor victims can do about it, at least certainly not on the timescales needed to avoid crushing defeat.

It’s not just offence that this list is packing either – while these four killers are out doing their work someone needs to be holding mid-table objectives. Nurglings and Furies provide some token mobile objective play, but for units that can squad in the mid-board for a prolonged period you’ve got the Great Unclean One and Lord of Change. Both of these have options designed to make them as tough as possible, making it very tricky to divert enough firepower to take them out while also handling the pressure of the forward contingent. They’re also yet more powerful psykers, and it’s easy to forget given how brutal this list is in a fight that it’s also going to be utterly dominant in the psychic phase.

This list sums up to be incredibly cool build, with the one major issue that in the current metagame if it goes second against AdMech it’s at risk of immediately losing two of its Daemons and being badly in the hole from there. I’m not convinced there’s that much you can do about that as long as Enriched Rounds exists in its current form, but it’s something to be aware of if you’re planning on fielding this. As long as you’re happy to roll with that it looks like a complete blast to play, and big props to Austin for taking third place with it.

Stephen Fore – Adeptus Mechanicus – 4th ✪ Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

The Standout Features

• Heavier duty Mars tools ready to prey on anyone tuned for hordes.
• Super light on Characters in favour of more bodies and more blasting.

Why it’s Interesting in 9th

Apparently Mars is all the rage in this part of America, as this build complets a trio of such lists in the top four and showcases yet another slightly different style. This build doesn’t rely on any big Skitarii blocks at all, removing most of its vulnerabilities to anti-horde tools and minimising the number of support characters it needs, running with just a Marshall to carry the Exemplar’s Eternity around and a bare-bones Enginseer to spruce up the two Skorpii with Awaken the Machine doubled up by Tech Adept.

The rest of the list focuses on terrifying, terrifying killing power. Skorpii (and the Stratoraptor) as Mars are still pretty hot on that front, and 3×2 Ironstriders provides spectacular re-roll value into high-value targets. If hordes need to go down you’ve got a big Sterylizor blob for massive damage out of reserve, a decent amount of punch across the Raider squads, and two Fusilaves to drop bombs and plink away with their stubbers. Lots of Raiders and multiple Fusilaves also gives this list a bunch of ability to control what’s happening on the table early on (between pre-game moves, Seismic Bombs and large awkward bases), ensuring enemies are kept away from the valuable shooting platforms (which this list only has one tool to pull out of combat). They should pretty reliably buy this army the turn or so it needs to inflict a cripppling blow on most opposing forces, and sweeping them away with the double save boost up is a tall order.

Honestly my only surprise with this list is that it isn’t being run as a Veteran Cohort – it would become a legally composed one for the princely sum of 20pts and it feels like surely, surely that’s worth it to open up a few extra powerful tricks? Maybe it just flat doesn’t need it though, and while 20pts isn’t a lot the maths is slightly annoying in terms of what you cut first. This build tore through the competition and was only put down by Mark’s build in the final, so it’s clearly exceptional even as it is, and good work from Stephen to land this finish.

The Rest of the Best

Six more players finished the event on 4-1 records. They were:

• 5th – Patrick Parker – Aeldari: Bikes and boats with 3×3 Dark Reapers and a Farseer backing them up. Very much a proven build at this point, and clearly performed well here.
• 6th – Jonas Beardsley – Drukhari: Mostly a pretty conventional Black Heart/Strife build, with the only unusual addition being a couple of Razorwings, providing some extra anti-tank that’s very hard to hide with. Allows the list to take a high-roll swing at prising some Ironstriders out from behind a wall if it goes first in the AdMech game, which might be worth it!
• 7th – Armon Pollack – Drukhari: Slightly off the norm here – double Trueborn (Obsidian Rose and Black Heart) with a full 20 model Cult of Strife Wych unit ready to Webway Ambush in and cause problems while the Trueborn rack up kills.
• 8th – Mate Csaszar – Drukhari: Another break from the norm here, showing off Realspace Raid Raider spam. The Raid’s option to take multiple traits on the cheap is made good use of, as is the ability to extend the Black Heart Power from Pain bonus to Incubi, of which there are a mighty 25 in the list. The mid table ain’t a safe place to be againt that.
• 9th ✪ – Ken Knox – Adeptus Mechanicus: A TiWP showing for the conventional top-end Lucius build here.
• 10th – Stephen Henry – Adeptus Custodes: A somewhat novel build that takes full advantage of the point cut to Caladius tanks, sporting the full three with further firepower from Achillus dreadnoughts and Sagittarum Custodians. Unusually nasty shooting overall, while still having some hefty crunch and nasty characters.

Kent Wargames GT

All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings. Only one player entered the final round of this event undefeated, so all the players here were potential winners going into it.

David Gaylard – Adeptus Mechanicus – 1st Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

The Standout Features

• Mixed Forge World nastiness takes the crown in the UK.

Why it’s Interesting in 9th

Tournaments are back in the UK. Wooo! AdMech are here too! Oh.

This winning list mixes things up a little from the other builds we’ve looked at today, following the example of a mixed build we saw a few weeks back. A Lucius detachment including a max unit each of Vanguard and Rangers with Solar Flare backup gives you a lot of the peak value of that Forge World, and because AdMech pay very little price for choosine to include multiple Force Worlds in the same list, it can be an attractive option.

Here, it means that this army can include a whole bunch of hyper nasty Mars vehicle and elite Skitarii threats, ready to squeeze lots of value out of their re-rolls and Wrath of Mars (whether reliably into a horde from the Pteraxii or into an unsuspecting utility character from the big Raider squad). Mars also, of course, gets to double stack Shroudpsalm and Bulwark Doctrina if it wants to, so on the turn you choose to blow Bulwark this list can be mostly as resilient as a Lucius build unless the enemy can ignore cover.

Essentially, this list packs in all the nastiest AdMech tricks, with the only real cost being a slightl hit to aura synergies and running a slightly broader target profile than skewing towards either Mars hulls or Lucius horde. In theory, that means conventional lists might have a better chance of gunning for this army, but in practice the absurd power it’s packing makes that unlikely to matter. It’s an exceptional list that earned a well deserved event win for its pilot – congratulations David.

Nassim Fouchane – Iron Hands Successors – 2nd Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

The Standout Features

• Dreadnought nonsense combines with melee punch for a spicy Marine build.
• Highly tuned Devastator squads maximise output for their price.
• Eliminators make a strong showing as cheap value pieces.

Why it’s Interesting in 9th

Now this is the sort of thing you hope for when a new region is unleashed on the metagame after far too long in hibernation. This list does a bunch of sneaky things using the Iron Hands supplement to provide it with a heavy mixture of early game punch and staying power. In terms of early punch, it lines up the shooting of two Redemptors with a couple of dev squads who are equipped for a maxed-out early spike. Putting one multi-melta in each unit means that the armorium cherub provides huge value without the overall price tag getting too high, and the grav cannons are very well positioned in the current metagame. The damage boost from these keys off save characteristic, so if AdMech have Bulwark up they jump to D2, neatly bypassing Lucius and allowing them to cut a horrendous swathe through any of the elite 2W Skitarii flavours. In this build, they can also ignore move/shoot as they pod in turn 1 (or later with Methodical Firepower) thanks to the superdoctrine, and have access to Mercy is Weakness for when you need them to spike something heftier. The superdoctrine is also incredibly handy for the Eliminators, who can move to get off shots and essentially auto-hit thanks to the RR1s when it’s up, as they moved to BS2+ in the codex. Two units is enough to threaten to spike a character who’s out in the open, and they’re an extremely cost-effective unit anyway these days, so a bunch to like in this build. Finally, filling out the shooting contingent we have some premium Iron Hands nonsense in the form of a March of the Ancients VolCon. 9W is obviously the perfect number for a Character dread, and ensures that this guy will keep blasting away pretty deep into the game, even against nasty opposition like AdMech. Bonus shots on 6s is just gravy.

Summing all that up, this build has shooting damage sorted without really needing to lean on its Chapter Tactic at all. To take advantage of that (and further bump up the Redemptors, who love it), the Tactic chosen is an extremely melee focused one, allowing the relatively small melee squads on show here to punch considerably above their weight. They’re not goign to be able to take out the very nastiest stuff (that’s clearly reserved for shooting here) but sport a considerable number of attacks to help take out hordes, and lightning claws remain one of the best all-purpose melee weapons in the game. All the primary melee stuff is speedy FLY INFANTRY too, making it perfect for prising things out from behind ruins, the one thing the many, many guns here might not be able to do.

To finish up, there’s a scattering of objective utility stuff, including the increasingly popular “Tempest with actual Scouts in it” and some Company Veterans, ensuring this list is ready to tackle whatever Secondaries it needs to. Overall, I love this list – it combines the tools available to it in a novel and extremely potent way, providing something that’s flexible in how it approaches the game while still having the tremendous turn one punch you want to capitalise on the first turn in the current meta. Great work from Nassim.

James Marsden – Adeptus Mechanicus – 3rd Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

The Standout Features

• A Lucius spin on the Veteran Cohort
• Sydonian Dragoons provide some more durable melee within the limitations.

Why it’s Interesting in 9th

OK fine it looks like you can run a Lucius horde Veteran Cohort if you really want to. Joy of joys. There’s not too much to explain here – you’ve got the standard 80 Skitarii bodies with a bit less backup than in other builds, but the downside if you’re going after it is that your ability to exploit the first turn is drastically diminished. If you’re packing most flavours of anti-horde weaponry, your choice on that turn is either shooting into Rangers on a 1+ save or Vanguard on a 2+ with Blast immunity. There are going to be some flavours of toy that do punish the reduced numbers (VolCons can still make a big dent in the Vanguard, Mortals are excellent) but most lists are going to struggle to make too much impact. A similar thing goes for the one unit of Ironstriders here – it’s ready to pick up all of the buffs in the entire world so that it’s running on the best possible save for as much of the game as possible. It does theoretically give the list a weak spot, in that if that squad dies then the rest of the army is short tank-killing tools, but it’s a hard one to exploit.

On the offensive, this build sports the same full Ruststalker unit as we saw in Mark Hertel’s list, and also the more unusual choice of a couple of Dragoon squads. While overshadowed by the crazy power of Ironstriders, these did get quite a few tasty boosts in the codex that make them pretty attractive, and the Cohort is a good place to run them – having access to +1A when they need it really helps push them over the top. They also provide good synergy with the lists other plans – they’re a Broad Spectrum Data Tether unit that wants to push forward, so they can hand the Ruststalkers the DATA TETHER they need when it’s alpha time, and in a build that’s slightly lower on model and unit count having some extremely fast rapid response melee helps to shore up any possible weakness to getting out-board controlled.

Overall – more fun stuff, at least giving us a new unit to talk about on top of some of the more conventional tricks. I’ll be interested to see whether this Cohort Lucius version catches on or if Cohort ends up as mostly a Mars thing and the old Lucius builds remain dominant, so thanks to James for giving us something interesting to think about!

Robert Lloyd – Imperium – 4th Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

The Standout Features

• You saw the Knight right?
• I would refer to that as a standout feature. Not an expert or anything, but they’re quite tall.
• Knight and Breachers provide some substantially nastier mid-table crunch on top of the standard Lucius tricks.

Why it’s Interesting in 9th

Continuing today’s theme of “the AdMech book, but stuff people haven’t tried yet”, this build takes advantage of the options to bring along a single, non-Doctrina breaking Knight thanks to the Knight of the Cog rule. Knights are quietly pretty strong in the current format – they’re somewhat swingy against AdMech as, sadly, cognis lascannons are very well designed for blowing them to bits, but not every AdMech build is bringing enough of those to reliably one-round one through a 4++ (thanks to Rotate), and if they aren’t then choosing a Mechanicus house means they’ll be fully operational in revenge. That provides a powerful way that things can go wrong for an opponent in the mirror, and the choice of the Blessed by Metalica trait (which in this list just gives +2W) in this list clearly aims to maximise the chance of that happening. House Raven does, of course, provide a lot more than just the trait at this point – several of their stratagems (which do unlock from a Super Heavy Aux) can be very handy, whether it be re-rolling 1s to hit with the RFBC and missile pod when shooting into enemy Skitarii, or bumping the avenger gatling cannon to S7 to have a go at blasting Ironstriders. Taking the Armour of Sainted Ion also maximised the chance that Crimson Wall will be available for a clutch melee save when it really matters. Stacking it all up, you get your multi-phase, fairly flexible killer, and there’s certainly scope to do a lot of work with one loaded like this.

The list also makes some smart choices to maximise the value. Having a single, high value target increases the priority of stopping enemy deep strike melee or redeploy tricks from going after them, and two units of Serberys Raiders and a medium-sized Sicarian Infiltrator unit combine to provide excellent early screening to prevent that. That limits the opponent to shooting if they want to take the Knight down early, and the fact that they’re likely to prioritise it allows the list to do a couple of other things. Kataphron Breachers have a great base rate but are very vulnerable to certain kinds of weapon – here those are either pointed at the Knight, in which case great the Breachers get to do stuff, or they draw fire away from the Knight, which is also kind of fine at their price tag. Having them as auxiliary ObSec melee crunch also helps give this list a critical mass of mid-table threats if it ever finds itself in a position to really capitalise on that. It also makes it a bit more palatable to put all the Ironstriders in a single unit, freeing up FA slots for the Raiders and maximising the value they get from buffs, because they’ll have a bit less of a target on their head, and with 5CP going into the Knight, there’s really not the capacity to have a third detachment. Speaking of that, not really needing any CP to power them is another attractive aspect of the Breachers in this build.

That allows what CP the list does have to be reserved for Knight nonsense and powering the Skitarii strats, because a reasonably sized horde is, in fact, still here. The skew is significantly towards Vanguard, recognising that this list wants to push for the mid board and that Enriched Rounds is cheaper to power than Galvanic Volley Fire, but it still packs the one big Ranger blob for any situation where their fancy trick is backbreaking.

In general, what we’re seeing across all these AdMech builds is an attempt to give opponents new difficult questions to answer on top of the default Skitarii problem, and this list definitely succeeds at that, because if you can’t kill that Knight at range you’re going to have a very bad time against it. If you can it does theoretically create a weakness, but as anyone who played against Knights a lot in 8th will remember, when you’re shooting into a 4++ the dice sometimes just say no, and that creates a real angle for this build, along with drawing fire from Breachers as discussed above. Great to see this aspect of the codex explored, and a worthy placing here from Robert

The Rest of the Best

The four lists above are all the players who went 5-1 or better. However, the top 4-2 player played on the top table in round 6, having been paired up against the only undefeated player at the time, so gets included on the basis that they could have won the event with a victory in that game.

• 5th – Konrad Bartkiewicz – Drukhari: Defiantly shaking their fist at the AdMech in their rightful place, the last list from this event packs in a lot of the hotest new Drukahri tech – Court of the Archon, double Succubus, MSU Hellions and a block of Technomancer Cronos all make an appearance, alongside the standard complement of Raiders and a unit of Trueborn. Still incredibly powerful, but fell to the eventual winner on table 1 in the final.

Wrap Up

That’s it for part 1, make sure to check back in tomorrow for more hot competitive builds and analysis, and hit us up in the comments or at contact@goonhammer.com if you have any suggestions or thoughts on the format.