More tournaments, more content – that’s the deal.

To help make good on that, today James “Boon” Kelling is joining me to cover the lists from the Renegade Summer Meltdown GT, where many of his team were in attendance, while I’ll be finishing up by taking a look at the winning lists from the final three GT+ events of the weekend.

Let’s go!

Renegade Summer Meltdown

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

Matt Root – Drukhari – 1st Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

The Standout Features

• Dark Technomancer Cronos
• Drazhar and his Droogs
• Archon & Succubi Hero-Hammer
• Morvaine’s Agoniser Wych tarpit

Why it’s Interesting in 9th

Matt Root is a man who needs no introduction. So I won’t bother.

Matt’s brand of Drukhari is very similar to my own post-FAQ list… which frankly makes sense because he and I had discussed the utility of the Cronos to cover for the significant lack of quality shooting from the post-FAQ army. Typical of Drukhari lists, Matt’s list is defined by multiple minimum-sized squads that are fast, punch far above their weight, and are supported by a bevy of slice-and-dice combat characters that float like butterflies and sting like a freight train. By this point, nothing in this list should really surprise anyone though you could certainly be forgiven if you were to look at it and ask, “What the hell is an Ossefactor? Is that a Hexrifle?” Almost four months into the Drukhari menace that counts as interesting – so let’s talk about it!

At 5 points a pop, both the Hexrifle and Ossefactor’s are interesting choices for a squad upgrade. Wracks at 40 points base make for a decently tough obsec unit but with the demise of the Dark Technomancer Liquifiers they’ve forgone their role as offensive, Raider-mounted push units and taken on the role of transported ablative wounds and back-field squatters. However, Matt says ‘nay’ to being typecast and invests in some capability for them to reach out from their boats and actually participate in the game. The Hexrifle I think is the weaker choice here, being a Heavy 1 weapon it suffers the penalty of a moving transport, but with the Dark Technomancer overcharge and capability to ignore Look Out, Sir, the Strength 6, AP -2, 2D weapon suddenly becomes capable of one-shotting some support characters at 3D, +1 to wound, and the capability to spike an additional mortal wound on a wound roll of 6 – a pleasant surprise for those pesky Skitarii Marshall’s that seem to be floating around. More interesting is the inclusion of the Ossefactors in both squads – an Assault 1 weapon that is poison 2+ at AP -3 and 2D? Dark Technomancer overcharging that suddenly means you’re threatening a LOT of non-vehicle units with some fairly significant chip damage. Once again, an item that can punch well above its weight into the right targets.

Are these reliable? Meh.

But are they fun? Also meh, but probably meh-plus.

Anyway, on his second GT+ winning run this season, Matt rolled through some tough opponents including two Ad Mech armies piloted by Tim Royers and 4th place finisher Charlie Andre, as well as an Ultramarine list piloted by Ryan Olson and racked up enough points to take first of the undefeated. Congratulations to the winner!

Joshua Terry – Death Guard – 2nd ✪ Place  

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

The Standout Features

• Twin Volkite Contemptors – so hot right now
• Heavy investment in Blightlord and Deathshroud Terminators
• Shambling poxwalker hordes

Why it’s Interesting in 9th

Death Guard, like Dark Angels, have remained in the competitive conversation since their 9th edition introduction – even in the face of the Drukhari and Ad Mech releases.

This list showcases a lot of the tools that are letting them do that – these units are strong individually while also coming together to present an incredibly imposing challenge to opponents aiming to win while dealing damage. The main standout here is using a full Blightlord unit as Mortarion’s Anvil. The big upside of the Blightlord unit is that some opponents borderline can’t deal with it – control enough of the table with it and Harlequins or melee Sisters, for example, will be hard-pressed to make much headway. Access to the Relaptic Assault stratagem and Gloaming Bloat double down on this – it makes it harder to work round the unit, and even harder to destroy them. It trades off a bit of flexibility from the list as a whole for creating an impossible challenge for some opponents, which can be a very good call in the right metagame. Here it clearly paid off.

Joshua defeated two Ad Mech and one Sisters lists on his way to an undefeated performance and a second place finish.

Tyler Devries – Adeptus Mechanicus – 3rd Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

The Standout Features

• Dual Forgeworlds, Mars and Lucius, for double the fun
• Standard core of Skitarii infantry and Ironstriders
• Multiple Serberous Raider units to screen and target out floating support characters
• Multiple counter-charge Rustalker units

Why it’s Interesting in 9th

Tyler is a player who it seems is constitutionally unable to select a mono-detachment army and it’s frankly a small miracle that he managed to stick to a pure Ad Mech GT list. I guess that really speaks to the power of this army. Don’t call him a bandwagoner though, as Tyler is no stranger to Ad Mech – a key part of his GT winning Glass City Imperium list leveraged elements of Ad Mech. In terms of this particular brand of tabletop cancer I can state from first-hand experience that this is an especially oppressive list when its going first as the Raiders and Infiltrators are capable of really shrinking the board space while the rest of the army does what Ad Mech does and just deletes things that it looks sideways at. It’s for that reason that I take no small measure of joy in learning that Tyler did not go first even once over the weekend (though he assures me this is fine as he prefers second with this list ).

I think you could make the argument, convincingly, that pure Lucius is the strongest current build for Ad Mech, but Mars is assuredly a not too distant second. The dogma is a boon to the Skitarii but in particular the Ironstriders who gain a reroll on their to-hit roll and the Raiders who can benefit form the combination of Shroudpsalm and Bulwark Imperative, radically increasing their durability. Predictably, both unit types form the near entirety of, which Tyler maximizes the utility of by minimizing Ironstrider squad sizes, and maximizing two blocks of Raiders. The result is an army that is tough as nails on T1 going second, and brutally efficient, fast, and deadly going first. No small wonder Tyler prefers second – he has you on the backfoot before the game even starts… and can survive it if he fails the roll-off.

Tyler finished at the top of the 4-1 pile, his only loss coming to our 4th place finisher – Charlie Andre

Charlie Andre – Adeptus Mechanicus – 4th ✪ Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

The Standout Features

• 80 Lucius infantry provide near un-shiftable board control
• Ironstriders with a Marshall provide top-tier anti-tank
• Electro-priests in Duneriders await the perfect moment to slam in as a counter-charge threat

Why it’s Interesting in 9th

If you’re a regular reader of the column you may recognize Charlie Andre from previous entries with his unique brand of Dark Angels. Having finished 5th at the Atlantic City Open and more recently a 2nd place finish at Show Me Showdown he has finally gotten the bug to chase the meta and leapt head first into Ad Mech. If you’re an eagle-eyed reader of the column, you may also note that the list bears a striking similarity to Ben Cherwien’s Show Me Showdown winning list – and that’s because it is Ben’s list with the Pteraxii replaced with Infiltrators. That’s what teams are for after all. So with that in mind, let me just reach back to two weeks ago to quote Wings about that exact list…

“It’s AdMech’s world now, we just live in it. On some level there’s not a tonne to say about list that we didn’t already cover in our deep dive into the winning Lucius lists two weeks back. The Solar Blessing Dogma is one of the most powerful defensive traits ever printed, and combines with AdMech’s other sources of armour save manipulation to make taking lists like this off the table nearly impossible. Combine that with the absurd deadliness that Skitarii bring to bear thanks to the Enriched Rounds and Galvanic Volley Fire stratagems,  mobility that the Solar Flare and Legio Teleportarium provide them, and angles to Fall Back/Shoot and ignore morale and you’re left with a core that only builds heavy on T8 hulls with fairly unusual weapon loadouts can meaningfully engage with. Unfortunately for lists built around those, lascannon Ironstriders will blow them to pieces without breaking a sweat, generally leaving your path to victory against these builds as ‘go first, get a great start, don’t make even the tiniest mistake for the rest of the game’.”

To Charlie’s credit he has successfully made the switch from a drastically different Dark Angel playstyle to grasp the complexity of Ad Mech, competitively, in very short order. In doing so, he defeated a couple of prior Major winning players including Tyler DeVries and Cyle Thompson, both playing Ad Mech themselves. I think its safe to say that we haven’t heard the last from Charlie Andre, the only question is whether he’ll stick to his new-found success with Ad Mech or revert to his winning Dark Angel ways.

The Rest of the Best

• 5th – Eric Forsman – Adepta Sororitas: Running a near-identical list to John Lennon’s Lone Star Open winning list, Eric effectively leverages the flexibility of his mobile MSU army, combining multiple abilities and miracle dice consistency, to ensure each unit punches well above its weight – particularly the Zephyrim and Seraphim squads and their capability to hit hard out of reserves. His lone loss came to fellow 4-1 finisher Dennis Love in round two.
• 6th – Joseph Brannan – Chaos Daemons: Is there still a bounty on Daemons defeating Ad Mech in a GT? Because Joseph wants to claim it. His Slaanesh four-Keeper list supported by Daemonettes and Fiends rolled into Cyle Thompson’s Ad Mech in round five and walked away the victor. His lone loss came to the champion, Matt Root, in round 3.
• 7th – Tim Royers – Imperium: Wings says Imperium, but I say Ad Mech. Tim is well known for running the excellent Bugeater GT each year (and is adding another Khornehusker GT this fall) but every so often gets out to game. Tim adds some spice to the traditional Ad Mech list with some Breachers (gasp) and a House Raven Castellan. His lone loss came in round one to the champion, Matt Root.
• 8th – Christopher Rethemeier – Iron Warriors: Chaos Space Marines? In this meta? Chris and his triple Lord of Skulls say yes. Supported by multiple ability/aura-enhancing characters, objective sitting cultists, and rapid moving Raptors, Chris and his Lord of Skulls only loss came in round two against fellow bacon-lover Ryan Olson and his Ultramarines.
• 9th – Robert Thoen – Orks: Perhaps the orkiest of orky lists – Robert ran a Waaagh sized mob of Boyz under the vigil of a single Warboss on bike, supported by some Kommandos, and guided by the loud clanging of a towering Kustom Stompa. His lone loss came in round four against the 2nd place finisher, Joshua Terry.
• 10th – Dennis Love – Aeldari: Going back to the pre-Drukhari playbook, Dennis brings a Soaring Spite Harlequin flying fusion circus with an Expert Crafters/Masterful Shots Craftworld Spearhead for some mobile fire support. The list combines the traditional speed and flexibility of the Soaring Spite troupes and the still solid, high quality shooting of the Craftworlds giving him the capability to threaten up close and at range. His lone loss came in the fourth round to the 3rd place finisher, Tyler DeVries.

Overcharged Plasma Gaming GT

All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings. This event was using WTC-style differential battle points for placings rather than win record.

Innes Wilson – Black Templars – 1st Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

The Standout Features

• All the melee movement tricks you can handle packed into one build.
• Double super Chaplain thanks to Grimaldus not being a Master of Sanctity.
• 75pt Crusader Squads finally getting the airtime they deserve.

Why it’s Interesting in 9th

Innes Wilson is well know for his mastery of all the flavours of melee Marine nonsense, so it’s no surprise that he’s boarded the Black Templar train, racking up another event win for the Chapter that must surely by now have the best rules volume to top four ratio of any out there.

Devout Push remains one of the most powerful stratagems in the game, with its ability to force a Pile In without needing to be in engagement range first making it a spectacular Swiss army knife. Need your Terminators to get into combat after advancing? Devout Push. Need to get into combat after falling back with your VanVet block deep into the opponent’s lines? Devout Push. Need to counter-charge on your opponent’s turn? You better believe Devout Push is here to play. Assault Terminators, Vanguard Veterans and Redemptors all play extremely well with this powerful tool, making them phenomenal at keeping an iron grip on board control once battle is joined. The existence of push plus multiple powerful units that can Deep Strike also means that Canticle of Hate is at essentially its very best here, and with the Ancient Breviary to near-ensure that it goes up every time, the opponent is going to find that come the mid game this units in this list are going to be bouncing around the table like bumper cars, causing immense havoc all the time.

It’s also not solely strong up close – two Redemptors with Helbrecht to buff them is some considerable firepower, and they’re backed up by some Eradicators for when a high priority target absolutely must die. These units are shielded by one of the neat bits of tech this list is packing, the Aurillian Shroud. I must confess I’d not seen this in a top four build before, but on looking up it’s immediately obvious why it’s here – it provides a once-per-game small 4++ aura for CORE and CHARACTER units that you can throw up at the start of the Battle Round, and in the current metagame where there are some incredible alpha strike builds out there this is obviously fantastic, for the Dreads in particular.

The final thing to really highlight in this build is the Crusaders. Black Templars get what are essentially 75pt Tactical Marine squads and no one seems especially bothered to fix that. Some would argue they need a nerf. I would argue this is a strong pitch to bring basic Marine infantry down a bit to where they’re cool. Either way, being able to get 30 ObSec 3+ save wounds down for a mere 225pts when filling out your Battalion is obviously great, and more Templar players should do it.

This list ends up looking like a complete nightmare headache to play against and is packed with a whole bunch of power. I’d also say it’s especially strong in the differential scoring format because I’d expect it to wrack up some absolutely crushing wins in games where it takes over, but also to be able to pull enough movement tricks to notch up a respectable score in games it drops, ensuring a very high overall performance. That’s just what Innes picked up here, so big congratulations.

The Rest of the Best

Battle Point scoring makes this kind of arbitrary, but from eyeballing it there’s a noticeable dropoff in number of wins after 8th place, so that’s where I’m cutting it. I believe of those listed only Simon went into the final round with the points to catch Innes.

• 2nd ✪ – Simon Fitzpatrick – Drukhari: Pretty standard set of Drukhari stuff going on here, with the notable deviations from the norm being 2×10 Hellions and buying lots of Kabal MSUs with Blasters rather than any big Trueborn units.
• 3rd – Kris Mills – Adepta Sororitas: Pure Bloody Rose list spamming a whole bunch of MSUs of all the different melee flavours, some chunkier Repentia squads and two units each of storm bolter Dominions for Blessed Bolts and multi-melta Retributors. Celestine provides a roving beater and brings Indomitable Belief to the table to draw it all together.
• 4th – James E – Imperial Knights: Another showing for the Freeblade Lance, this time with a mighty Knight Castellan leading it up. Also notable is the ultimate Knight Crusader using Favoured Knight to stack both Sanctuary and Endless Fury.
• 5th – Steven Burns – Death Guard: An Inexorable list that really lives up to its company’s name by running two full Blightlord units, throwing down an incredibly pustulent gauntlet to any enemy planning to take it off the table.
• 6th – David Lisle – Death Guard: The Inexorable make a second appearence, with the lure of the Ferric Blight being too great to pass up on. This build sees Mortarion leading up a pretty balanced set of units from throughout the book.
• 7th – James Lighten – Necrons: A spicy and out-there build here, mixing up two different custom Dynasties. The standard Eternal Expansionists goes on the first, allowing lots of Wraiths and Ophydian Destroyers to push onto objectives (plus Lokhusts to shuffle pre-game to line up shots or hide), but the second detachment uses the less common Interplanetary Invaders and Superior Artisans combo to turbo-charge the capabilities of a suite of Arks and some Heavy Lokhusts. This build ends up with way nastier shooting than Necrons usually manage, and poses some pretty unique challenges to opponents.
• 8th – Christopher Irvine – Drukhari: Double Trueborn Drukhari with some mid-sized Hellion units rounds out the lists from this event.

Imps Gaming GT

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

Greg Chamberlain – Death Guard – 1st Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

The Standout Features

• Shooty Death Guard that threaten to land a tremendous close-range counterpunch thanks to a host of tricks on the Deathshrouds.
• Mortarion’s Anvil maximises the chance of the opponent’s forces breaking against the armoured line.

Why it’s Interesting in 9th

Death Guard continue to hold up incredibly well in a metagame that’s claimed a lot of other previously strong performers, but a lot of that has been driven by the Inexorable specifically. With that in mind, it’s great to see a slightly different spin really performing here.

In terms of the units the list uses there aren’t that many surprises here – the Death Guard rosters is pretty high quality in general, but there are definite standouts and they’re on show here, with PBCs and VolCons providing reliable ranged firepower, and Deathshrouds being a superb unit that provides a flexible mix of damage dealing and durability at a bargain price. Many of the standard support tools are also here, with mainstays like the Stench Vats Blightspawn and Tollkeeper Tallyman providing their usual excellent service.

Where this list diverges from the norm is on how it’s planning to turn the game in its favour in the mid-game. Rather than using the Ferric Blight to soften up targets and grind them out, my read here is that this army wants to soak up a punch and hit back like a truck, bodying the opponent out of the game. Mortarion’s Anvil is great for that – the Gloaming Bloat is an exceptionally powerful Contagion that will massively decrease the effectiveness of the enemy army up close, and there are lots of units here you can profitably spread it to with Flash Outbreak. Taking out Terminators with the Blightspawn behind them is hard at the best of times, but with the Bloat added too it becomes near impossible for many lists.

Once the initial punch has been taken its time to swing back, and that’s where the other unique tricks the list has come in. All three of the Deathshroud Champions have some sort of special toy added via either the Champion of Disease stratagem or the purchase of Virulent Fever. When these go after the enemy it’s going to be amidst a horrifying flurry of Mortal Wounds and extra damage. Backing them up, the Daemon Prince sports the excellent Warp insect Hive relic for full re-rolls, making them a hyper-reliable killing machine that’ll take most opposing characters clean off the table (and can take a real hit in return).

All Death Guard lists can soak up punishment then hit back, but the extra sting this one has in its tail compared to the average threatens to badly catch out opponents who aren’t expecting it or show inadequate respect – and of course any time they’re not engaging it is time they’re being bombarded by its various ranged tools. Always great to see some new toys tried out, so great work from Greg.

The Rest of the Best

Nine more players finished on 4-2 or better, the record needed to make it into the top four. Only one player went into the finals on 5-0, so the players who went in on 4-1 all get the star.

• 2nd ✪ – Simon Miller – Drukhari: Lots of stuff going on here – a Realspace Raid packs a bunch of Blade for Hire and Hellion MSUs, plus a full squad each of Bloodbrides and Cronos, and then the cheekiest Drukhari Patrol (Drazhar and a Cult of Strife Wych MSU) accompanies them to unlock strats and bring in the Master of Blades.
• 3rd – Sean Ingham – Chaos Daemons: A very classic mixed Daemon build, with Beasts of Nurgle and Big Bird to provide the mid-board grind plus a Slaanesh detachment with two LoCs and a  big Daemonette blob for roving threats.
• 4th – Stephen Platten – Death Guard: Another Mortarion’s Anvil build, this one going hard on Deathshrouds, bulkign two of its three units up to five models, plus including some Grandfatherly Influence Chaos Spawn as cheap additional threats/Contagion delivery.
• 5th ✪ – Mark Tonks – Adeptus Mechanicus: Fun with Mars here, going hard on Ironstriders and packing Sterylizors and some other elite Skitarii to maximise Canticle benefits.
• 6th – Kerryn Shortland – Necrons: Delightfully different use of Relentlessly Expansionist here, teaming it up with Rad Wreathed for extra melee punch from all of the nasties the build packs, plus two full squads of Heavy Lokhusts that can use it to line up alpha strikes. The Void Dragon finishes things up, providing an extra cruchy threat ready to punish AdMech vehicles.
• 7th ✪ – Paul Bridge – Death Guard: A Mortarion’s Anvil list that wants to take the fight to the enemy, foregoing a lot of the shooting output of other builds in favour of three Bloat-drones, ready to brawl around the board alongside Terminators.
• 8th – Nathan Whitbread – Adeptus Custodes: Most of the favourite current tools on show in this Shadowkeepers list, with lots of Sagitarrum, a Telemon and a big Venatari blob, plus a big unit of Allarus to provide late game flexibillty via Unleash the Lions.
• 9th ✪ – Sam Sinscoe – Drukhari: Boat spam, with a mighty six Raiders and three Ravagers plus backup from the Cult of Strife and Drazhar.
• 10th – Nick Cook – Iron Hands: Brutal alpha strike plans on show here, as five powerful Dreadnoughts of different flavours are joined by two melta Devastator squads in a drop pod, summing up to a list that’s ready to go big or go home.

Badger Brawl GT

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

Scott Toebe – Death Guard – 1st Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

The Standout Features

• Daemon Engine spam rounds out our featured Death Guard lists for the week.
• A Malignant Plaguecaster from the Wretched amps up the psychic firepower.
• Summoning lined up to provide Daemon Engine buffs.

Why it’s Interesting in 9th

This build is an excellent showcase for yet another extremely valid flavour of Death Guard, which is spamming Daemon Engines like crazy. All three of the Death Guard-specific ones are very attractive in the new book thanks to moving to base BS/WS3+ and the support they get from stratagems, and this list stands ready to completely bypass their main drawback of not being CORE. By keeping 180pts back for summoning, this list can bring some Chaos Daemons characters onto the table to provide re-rolls, going straight for a Daemon Prince if the opponent doesn’t have any particular weak targets or taking the more desireable route of slamming Epidemius onto the table if there are a few obvious early kills available. Adding re-rolls (and from Epidemius, further boosts down the line) on top of the already considerable output of the engines obviously makes them extremely dangerous, and a good rule of thumb in 40K is that the more dangerous you are, the better high durability gets.

That’s especially true for the big Blight-hauler unit. Belching Fumes is a tremendously powerful defensive effect (who doesn’t love the idea of literally halving the damage output of a las chicken squad?), and with a multi-melta and missile launcher strapped to each there’s some incredible killing power here. They’re basically ideal here, as they provide a solid core of damage output that’s such a pain to chew through that opponents might be hesitant to bother, but if they don’t they’re taking some serious attrition over time.

Adding to that, and also well suited to the build, is the second souped up Plaguecaster. Having a bunch of very durable hulls gives you lots of time to rack up damage from powers and Pestilential Fallout, so tapping into the Wretched for enhanced capabilities makes a lot of sense. Curse of the Leper and Plague Wind are also both very strong when fired into Skitarii and the Curse is also fantastic into Drukhari elites like Incubi, making them ideal choices for the current metagame.

All in all, deliciously (or I guess disgustingly) different but very powerful, and a worthy winner of the Badger Brawl.

The Rest of the Best

The top four players at this event all finished on 4-1 and were the only players to do so, meaning that winning the event was in theoretical reach for any of them.

• 2nd – Mason Vasquez – Drukhari: A whole bunch of MSUs of all different flavours packed into a whole bunch of Raiders, with one of the fancy new six-model Courts providing a notable feature beyond that.
• 3rd – Paul Gamble – Adeptus Mechanicus: One of the extremely streamlined Lucius horde builds that dumps pretty much all of its points into them, Characters, Infiltrators and Ironstriders, with a single Fusilave and Raider unit to add a little more flexibility.
• 4th – Tyler Bortel – Hive Mind: A return after a prolonged absence for Hive Fleet Jormundgar Barbed Hierodules, stomping semi-indestructibly around the battlefield while some Kronos firepower backs them up. The extra tech this list packs is a small 4AE GSC detachment, providing it with some utility troops and access to A Plan Generations in the Making in extremis.

Wrap Up

That’s finally it for this mammoth week – big thanks to Boon and Rob for pitching in. We’ll have more content for you next week, as there are plenty more events in the pipeline. In fact, I’m even going to one, shockingly, so we’ll see how that plays out! In the meantime, questions, comments and suggestions to contact@goonhammer.com as usual.