Last week brought some massive shakeups to the world of 40K, and change is on the horizon. The Big FAQ, GT2021 pack, points changes and Drukhari nerfs all represent some big shakeups, but we’ve still got a couple of weeks of the “old” metagame left to play out. This past weekend saw a major and a GT fire, while this weekend coming brings the last glorious hurrah for unfixed Drukhari and pre-codex AdMech at the Atlantic City Open, which has an unusually early rules cutoff thanks to its size. Fans of cutting edge technology are going to start getting early data soon though, as the organisers of the Utah Gamer’s Alliance GT (also this weekend) are adopting AdMech and the new GT pack, and Terracon (a major in Australia) are allowing new AdMech.

It’s all change in the 40K world, and that switches up our focus a bit for list reviews, as I take back the reins from the excellent work Jon did covering for me last week (deploying his considerable Space Wolf expertise and laying down some Drukhari truths). We’re not just interested in how armies did at their event – we want to think about where they might go from here, and what that might mean for the future. Let’s dive on in, and find out!

Bugeater GT

All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings. This event was a Major.

Matt Root – Drukhari – 1st Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

The Standout Features

• Technomancer Drukhari leaning fully in to being a go-wide nightmare.
• All the nasty characters you’d expect and some Technomancer Cronos lurking as thorns amidst the avalance of chaff.
• Cheeky six-model Mandrake units to make While We Stand a nightmare to stop.

Why it’s Interesting in 9th

To really hammer home the “end of a era” feel (a short, but brutal one), our first list up today, belonging to the newly crowned Bugeater champion, goes incredibly hard on the Dark Technomancer/Wrack combo, and looks absolutely monstrous to play against. One of the big things Drukhari have going for them is that Raiders allow them to field go-wide MSU armies that gain all the upsides of that kind of build with minimal downside. When every unit is sitting inside a vehicle hull with an invuln, you’re far less worried about your army suffering death from a thousand cuts, and can focus solely on inflicting the same fate on those who dare oppose you. This list takes that to its logical conclusion, bypassing choices like Trueborn or Bloodbrides to focus on packing as many small units as possible into its six Raiders, all of which threaten to trade up. So low to the ground are the units, in fact, that the two six model Mandrake squads are tied for the highest cost after Drazhar, allowing them to be picked for a very hard to pin down While We Stand We Fight. (I’d like to pretend I spotted that myself, but Boon tipped me off).

Tilting the points advantage towards it from the start with that secondary makes this list even more of a nightmare to play against. It’s perfectly capable of maxing out several others, and can contest lots of objectives very quickly, which forces the enemy to engage. Once they do, the incredible trade-up potential of the units here means they’re very likely to come off worse from the exchange, and the list can even resurrect the odd model via the Cronos’s Spirit Leech tentacles to undo chip damage. The Cronos also provide useful models for ticking off Engage when the list picks that, and safe spots for CHARACTERs to grab Look Out Sir shielding in an emergency.

Mostly, you know why this stuff is good, so the question becomes “how dead is it”? The answer is, of course, incredibly dead in the specific, but the ability of Drukhari to go wide with annoying, efficient units is absolutely going to remain, so don’t count that out entirely. Cronos are also tipped to be the next big thing after their recent successes, as the Technomancers nerf didn’t get applied to their auto-hit gun, allowing them to retain some healthy firepower. In larger numbers and alongside nastier other units their Pain Syphon stratagem also comes into play a lot more, and they’re just generally very durable for their cost as well. As far as this list goes, those are probably the key embers from which it will be re-kindled.

That might be what’s on the horizon, but in here and now, congratulations to Matt for taking the trophy!

James “Boon” Kelling – Drukhari – 2nd Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

The Standout Features

• Our boy Boon brings the latest iteration of his Poisoned Tongue/Technomancers nastiness out to play.
• Shows off Poisoned Tongue Trueborn and a double Succubus loadout, both likely to get more common soon.

Why it’s Interesting in 9th

Boon continues his fantastic season with another fantastic placing at the helm of his Drukhari, sporting a similar build to what he took to a top 10 finish in Dallas. The main change this time around is switching up one of the Succubi to be the warlord and taking a second, getting to draw fully on the horrible relic collection of the Cult of Strife to build a couple of nightmare blenders. Outside of that the plan is the same – Poisoned Tongue gives the army incredible flexibility to adapt its deployment on the fly, while Grotesques and Trueborn in Raiders make for extremely challenging WWSWF choices.

While major elements of this list are, once again, departing these shores in the near future there are definitely things to look at. With Technomancers taking a hit, double Kabal lists (for juicy double Trueborn action) are likely to become more common, and the upsides Poisoned Tongue bring to the table make them a tempting choice for one slot if that’s your plan. With fewer points to blow on Covens, taking the second Succubus is also likely to become more common, and although the Razorflails/Competitive Edge combo is dying, there are still at least two valid builds for CoS characters (Flails/Lotus/Precision and Tryptych/Edge) that give them brutally disproportionate killing power. The final thing to look for is more Venoms – there’s now a bigger price gap between them and the basic Raider, and being easier to hide on the board makes them a good combo with the Poisoned Tongue plan, as it’s easier to shut down opposing shooting with a well timed pull of larger boats.

Overall, therefore, changes are definitely going to be needed here as well, but once again there are some glimpses of what the future might be here (spoiler – it still contains lots of successful Drukhari armies). Congratulations to Boon on his continued streak of successes, with this result likely firing him to 2nd or 3rd in the ITC once the scores go in.

Dan Sammons – Imperium – 3rd Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

The Standout Features

• An innovative list that somehow manages to be even more dead post-changes than some Drukhari builds.
• Archeopter and Raider interference teams keep the enemy bottled as the Retributors pick them apart.
• Catastrophic damage from the Repentia finishes the job.
• Holy Trinity Retributors likely to at least somewhat foreshadow things to come.

Why it’s Interesting in 9th

If you’d told me before I dug into the results that the first non-Drukhari list I covered would be even more shattered asunder by upcoming changes than builds using Dark Technomancers I don’t think I would have believed you – but here we are.

First up, let’s talk about what this build is – a total nightmare, and very cleverly put together. In a similar way to Drukhari, Sisters can put down some incredibly efficient trade pieces (a little less extreme in the new book mind), and this list exploits that to the max, filling out on three units each of Retributors and Repentia to do brutal work both at range and up close. It’s got some early chaff to push quickly up the board in the form of Serberys Raiders and Battle Sisters squads, two Fusilaves to mess with the opponents movement and enough small squads to ensure Actions Secondaries are always available, and those combine with the damage dealers to give the opponent some impossible choices. Try to hide and you’ll get gradually bombed out by the Fusilaves, here tougher than usual thanks to taking Chaff Launchers, and lose on the primary. Try a cautious advance and you’ll get blown apart by the nightmare shooting of the Retributors. Go too fast however and the Repentia will burst out of their Rhinos, yeet themselves across the board with Miracle dice and rip you apart.

Troublesome stuff, certainly, bringing some nifty tricks from two factions together for a unique and potent build. Unfortunately, the times are a changing and the new books say no.

Both of these armies now have “pure army” mechanics that reward you for avoiding soup. On the AdMech side, I think there’s some plausible play for this detachment despite that. You lose Doctrinas, sure, but you don’t need those here, and the Lucius Dogma (which i think you’d swap to in the new book) adds some significant durability to the ponies and planes against a lot of lists. If you could find an alternative to the Sisters that was able to pull off the same game plan as the Bloody Rose detachment here, still worth a look.

It’s the Sisters where the big shakeup comes, because in the new book Acts of Faith are a pure army mechanic, and multiple components of this build get a lot worse without them – and that’s on top of nerfs to the units themselves. Retributors have been substantially toned down (not out of contention entirely, but no longer indisputably the most reliable tank killers in the game), while Repentia can no longer Advance/Charge, making it a lot harder to spring them on people at extreme distances. As we talked about in our review, there are plenty of cool things to try instead, with Sacresants and Dominions plausibly swapping in for some of the units here, but players who were always falling back on the six Rs are definitely going to have to shake things up. Even with those trades, expect to see a massive drop off in Sisters soup, because Act of Faith access was one of the big reasons they were so good at it. Even with all that said, mind, there is still something here that I think you’re going to see more of, which is Retributor squads loaded with a lower than max number of weapons, and targeting Holy Trinity. While the book brought some nerfs, it has also brought discounts and access to the kind of custom faction traits that bring per unit re-rolls, making small squads loaded with a few big shots look very potent. The roster does that admirably, and I expect we’ll see players quickly adjust to maximise their value.

All in all, similar to the Drukhari this list is a very fitting send off for some top metagame tools, in this case units that have been very potent for most of the edition thus far. Congratulations to Imperium expert Dan for putting on an excellent showcase.

Ryan Olsen – Aeldari – 4th Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

The Standout Features

• Cost-efficient mid-board Drukhari units team up with Wraithseers and Craftworlds shootings for a powerful combo.
• By far the least dead of any of the top four builds post-update.

Why it’s Interesting in 9th

Now this is my kind of army list – and by a country mile the least dead of the top four to boot. Your basic problem with Craftworlds at the moment is that you’ve got good long-ranged shooting options, but the kind of efficient, mid-table trade pieces you need to turn that into a full blown strategy just don’t really exist in the main book (Spears are the closest, and are just a bit too brittle against melee to be your whole plan). Luckily, Drukhari are more than happy to oblige on that front, providing an alternative to the Harlequin options that have been used to plug the hole thus far in the edition, and quite plausibly doing a better job at it because of the more diverse tools and higher durability. You’ve got Trueborn to provide pin-point anti-tank shooting without having to get all up in fusion pistol range, Incubi for when some space marines need to get chopped to bits, and some of the nastiest characters in space to play “will it blend?” with anything that needs special attention.

Backing that up with the cream of Craftworlds shooting lets you play a very similar game to the Imperium list – your opponent is doomed if they do nothing or cower, as the Drukhari will seize the board while d-cannons and the Night Spinner chip away, get wrecked by a Reaper barrage and the Trueborn if you try and stay too far away, and get murderised by the characters if you push the issue. Scourges and Swooping Hawks ensure there’s an Action plan and that’s a wrap!

I like this list a lot and it’s very much in the same ballpark as what I’m planning to field at my first few events, getting my Drukhari/Craftworlds soup kick going again. As mentioned it’s also still a going concern – while it picks up 40pts of increases between Drazhar and the three Raiders, it also receives 37pts of discounts across the Craftworlds units, meaning it can stay legal just by knocking off a single Raider upgrade or something. Loss of Power From Pain is certainly rough on some units, but it’s far less catastropic than losing Acts of Faith, meaning that Aeldari soup is very much back on the menu. I’m sure everyone’s thrilled to hear that. I certainly am anyway, so great job Ryan.

The Rest of the Best

Three more players achieved 5-1 records at this event. They were:

• 5th – Sean DIlley – Death Guard: Death Guard continue to hold up well, with another excellent placing here for an Inexorable based list largely in line with the ones that have been performing recently. Poxwalkers out front, Deathshrouds in the middle and VolCons/PBCs at the back, with the usual buff suspects around. The only divergence is the choice to pack a couple of units of Cultists, presumably to shore up the Action game (and something that could plausibly become more important in the ROD era).
• 6th – Ben Neal – Tau: Following a recent pattern, 6th place is a bit of an understatement here – Ben only lost to Matt in the finals, having blasted all the way to the top tables of a Major with Tau, a pretty spectacular achievement. The centrepiece of the list that took him there is a gigantic Farsight Enclaves Veteren Cadre Crisis Bodyguard team, loaded to the gills with defensive tools and a mix of airbursts and CIBs to ensure they can level almost any target, no matter how well they hide. A Riptide with the Amplified Ion Accelerator (which doesn’t letting it sit on a 3++ all game no bother) and Farsight backed them up, and one important thing to highlight is that Bugeater had already (correctly, it turns out) ruled that Mont’ka let you fall back and shoot, suggesting that this being widely adopted is good news for the army. With so many points invested in the Crisis Team, any “no overwatch” ability is a complete nightmare to play against without Farsight being able to pull them out in an emergency. After the Farsight heavy hitters, most of the remainder of the list was filled out with Vior’la units, bringing in Aun’shi for buffs, Vespid for actions, and a full squad of Breachers in a Devilfish for close-range anti-horde action via the Hot-Blooded stratagem. It’s clearly an unusually potent recipe for the Tau, and expect to see ride or die fans of the faction around the world giving Farsight another go in the coming weeks.
• 7th – Geoff Husser – Chaos:  Another spin on the fringe but quietly reliable strategy of jamming a bunch of War Dogs on the table and tag teaming some massive Chaos nasties with them, building a force that can overwhelm the unprepared and gives up few easy targets. The fact that several flavours of War Dog gun are extremely good against Drukhari specifically (especially when used with Infernal Power) only adds to that. This list maximises the impact of that shooting via a custom Household with Infamous Heredity to provide some re-rolls and Abominable Constitution so you can avoid self-bracketing, and takes a pair of Exalted Keepers and Magnus as the monster mash du jour. That seems pretty respectable – the Keepers give you early melee push, while Magnus is an enormously sticky threat who forces the opponent to either try and punk him out the gate (ignoring the War Dogs) or let him get charged up. A couple of Fiends to punish unwary opponents by locking them in combat complete a powerful recipe.

Armed Forces Day Charity GT

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

Brad Chester – Drukhari – 1st Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

The Standout Features

• Pour one out for another Drukhari build.
• Some units whose stock goes up among the Wych Cult contingent, including the Precision/Flails Succubus and Hellions.

Why it’s Interesting in 9th

Brad is another player who has been thoroughly rocking out with Drukhari since they landed, and here racks up his second event win. His build, like the others this week, goes heavy on Dark Technomancers, but once again there’s some possible inspirations for the future here. The 10-model block of Hellions has been a signature part of Brad’s Drukhari builds, and they’re quite plausibly going to get even better at facing off against the mirror, because Technomancers was a big chunk of the D2 shooting a lot of them packed. Add to that the ability to detonate even the heftiest block of Cronos via appropriate application of Cult of Strife strats and you’ve got a very tasty unit. The list also hammers home just how great Succubi are by taking the maximum three of them, including showing off the glow-up that some of the Cursed Blade tricks picked up, creating a landmine that can be fatally fed to an opposing Drazhar (though note that similar to the question of taking Dark Lotus Toxin when a Strife character isn’t your warlord, not all events will allow mixing relics from multiple subfactions outside a Realspace Raid. Given the second place Chaos list would fall foul of the same thing, as the Faith and Fury legion supplements were the first thing to use the new wording, I’m assuming the event was allowing it).

The heavier Wych contingent is definitely the most enduring tool here, and very much something that could be run out alongside heavier Kabal setups in the future. Nice work from Brad picking up another trophy, and we’ll see if he can make it three at the ACO next weekend.

Steven Glansberg – Chaos – 2nd Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

The Standout Features

• Scattered Daemons (including the surprisingly OK Skull Cannons) fill out the board while the Emperor’s Children get things done.
• Daemonsmith-buffed Decimators grind down anything with exceptional saves or damage reduction.
• Noise Marines and combi-plasma Terminators cover the rest under the influence of the Remnant of the Maraviglia.

Why it’s Interesting in 9th

Chaos Space Marines are in a pretty similar spot to Craftworlds where there’s good stuff but not all the glue you need to assemble that into a coherent plan. What they’re missing is cheap stuff to fill out space while still contributing something to the game, so step forward Daemons to do just that. Furies for cheap and cheerful Action play, a couple of moderate utility troop choices and two of the now-surprisingly-pushed Skull Cannons to block out the backfield and gradually blast away. Just want the suspiciously spike-encrusted doctor ordered, allowing the CSM roster to get on with what it’s good at.

In this case, that comprises showing off two of the real draws to the faction – the exceptional and unique damage dealing of Iron Warriors Decimators (with Daemonsmith to up their potential to the max) and the all-rounder shooting and brawling that Emperor’s Children bring to the table. A big block of Noise Marines using Excruciating Frequencies and the Remnant of the Maraviglia can hose almost anything that doesn’t have damage reduction or a 2+ off the table, and the soulburner petards of the Decimators can take a big chunk out of anything that does fit that bill. Whatever’s left at the end gets the dubious honour of partying with a big brick of combi-plasma/claw Terminators, a real swiss army knife of a unit that can tear up almost anything. This list is a bit less willing to trade out it’s alpha units than some of the others we’ve looked at, but it makes up for it in sheer damage potential when they get to do their thing, making it daunting to play against.

The only challenge with it is that the change to Warptime  and Prescience to them it <LEGION> locked is annoyingly fiddly to build around, as you really want the Dark Apostle in the Emperor’s Children detachment for the relic. Future iterations would probably have to give up the rr1 aura for that detachment by swapping the Daemon Prince and the Sorceror, or trying some more fundamental refactors. The key challenge is that you under no circumstances want to take more than the minimum number of Troops units, as that would partially defeat the point of bringing the Daemons. I’m sure plenty of CSM players are shaking their fist at that jumped plague ridden scoundrel Mortarion for runing a good thing they had going here.

Even with that qualifier, there’s plenty to think about here and it’s great to see a CSM-heavy build do well. Congratulations to Steven.

Aaron Towler – Dark Angels – 3rd Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

The Standout Features

• Deathwing and Devastators shows off a new angle on Dark Angels.
• Properly loaded up for Weapons from the Dark Age.
• Azrael at the helm provides extra Devastator or Tactical Doctrine and much-needed CP.

Why it’s Interesting in 9th

Poor Dark Angels had their planned reign of terror somewhat curtailed by the arrival of Drukhari, but the book remains very powerful, and this week Aaron has brought us a new spin on it, featuring the elusive Greenwing alongside their bone-armoured brethren. One of the successful patterns we’ve seen in Dark Angels is the use of a modest Deathwing contingent (here well represented in the two seven-model units plus the Pennant) alongside other tools for mobility and threat projection. Conventionally the choice for the latter has been Ravenwing, but here instead we get the other iconic Dark Angels special – plasma weaponry.

Devastators and Inceptors both provide potent places to drop Weapons from the Dark Age (the latter especially) when you want to absolutely annihilate something, even more so when you’ve got a speedy model with the Reliquary of the Repentant to rush in and tank invulnerable saves. Add in Azrael for re-rolls, extra command point juice, a nice broad 4++ and some manipulation of doctrines and you’ve got a very potent murder castle, and one that goes relatively up in value with the knock to the Death on the Wind secondary the FAQ brought (it’s still great, but less reliably just free points for showing up with Ravenwing). You also get the space to put in some neat utility picks like the Company Veterans and the single heavy bolter in the grav dev squad for Hellfire Shell.

Azrael is just one of the extremely powerful tools in the Supplement that’s had minimal exploration, and this list does a great job of showing him off – it wants everything that he brings to the table in a way that lists more all-in on Ravenwing and Deathwing don’t. It does sadly need to find 25pts to keep the Inceptors post-faq, but that’s probably achievable and the army does need them.

What I like about this list is that in a metagame that’s been teetering back towards favouring fairly skewed armies it still looks normal. It’s a healthy mix of faction staples and iconic units that would look at place in any casual game, but also come together for a powerful whole on the table. That energy is something I’ve liked a lot in 9th, and it’s good to see it holding up on some fronts, so great work from Aaron.

Kevin Leonard – Death Guard – 4th Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

The Standout Features

• Going full Poxwalker proves a winning formula for the Terminus Est Assault force.
• Deep striking Possessed and the traditional anvil of Deathshrouds and a Blightspawn back things up.
• The ultra-thicc Daemon Prince provides an emergency wrecking ball.

Why it’s Interesting in 9th

OK so I know I just complained about the gradual re-emergence of skew builds, but this one gets a pass on flavour grounds. Is there anything more Nurgle than unleashing a full blown zombie apocalypse! This army sees a hundre (OK 99, don’t @ me) Poxwalkers shamble up the table at alarming speeds thanks to Unleash the Horde and backed by a whole host of nasty tricks to punish an opponent who didn’t bring the right tools to clear them. 99 fearless T4 bodies is a pain to clear at the best of times, but these are extra troublesome. Deplete half a unit and they’ll replenish their ranks with Curse of the Walking Pox or The Dead Walk Again. Leave them alone and you’re eating the horrendous combo of Mutant Strain and The Wrathful Dead, dragging down even the toughest of models. Finally, this list in particular gets the ultimate screw you of just re-buying the first full unit to get wiped for 3CP (and it’s gonna). It’s spicy stuff, and only takes up a quarter of the lists points, a real bargain for the headaches it causes.

The rest of what we see here is mostly fairly conventional, but with a couple of Terminus Est specials at the end. Three units of Deathshrouds with the Revolting Stench Vats Blightspawn backing them up is probably the most common suite of units to anchor a Death Guard line, though this build does go a bit heavier on the Terminator units than strictly required, ensuring there’s still plenty for the opponent to chew through if they do clear the Poxwalkers. Further characters back that up, with one standout being the extra durable Daemon Prince you can create via Rotten Constitution and the Suppurating Plate. This model is a proper nightmare to deal with, functionally immune to many low or mid tier offensive tools and still able to take a beating from some of the best out there, and is a great value add for the price. I am slightly surprised not to see Typhus kicking around, as he brings lots of synergy to the table, but to get access to Arch Contaminator you’d have been spending one more CP, and a lot of those are spoken for here.

Prime among the users are the two units of Possessed, much more of a Terminus Est specific choice (backed up by a Putrifier). These solve the movement problem they have elsewhere by going into Outbreak Assault, coming in where needed to provide an extra must-answer threat and generally cause problems on purpose. Once you factor in Unleash and Rotting Tide that’s 8CP over the game spoken for, so given how strong Contaminator is I can see how the choice ends up getting made.

That finishes things up here, and the overall build is extremely unique and asks some very challenging questions of opponents with a very different kind of threat to some dominant builds – exactly what you want to be doing in a skewed metagame. Very strong work from Kevin.

The Rest of the Best

Two more players achieved 4-1 records at this event:

• 5th Place – Chris Babyar – Drukhari: Nothing too surprising for our final pure Drukhari list of the day – a heavy Dark Technomancers contingent, featuring Wracks and Grotesques, Cult of Strife characters, heat lance Reavers and Bloodbrides and a Poisoned Tongue detachment to allow access to re-deployable Raiders. You’ve seen pretty much all of this before by now, and like the other lists featured this one is due a hety shakeup.
• 6th Place – Elliott Levy – Aeldari: Eschewing the Drukhari nonsense, this is another entry into the classic Harlequin/Craftworld team up, though with a rather unusual Craftworld component. Two minimum Reaper units provide some one-and-done shooting, but that’s it for long-ranged firepower, the rest being a squad of Shining Spears, some Rangers and the Yncarne. Adding the Spears alongside two units of Skyweavers in the main detachment gives this army some real mid-board brawling potential, and the Yncarne adds massive headaches for opponents who engage in that kind of contest, all adding up to a strong looking list.

Wrap Up

Another week down takes us ever closer to the seismic upheavals that are coming down the metagame tracks, and you won’t want to miss the next few weeks as we discover whether the light at the end of the tunnel was, in fact, more different Drukhari builds. Comments, questions and suggestions to contact@goonhammer.com and we’ll see you then.