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Competitive Innovations in 9th: Even Angels Fall pt.1

By James "One_Wing" Grover

The Balance Dataslate has arrived, about which there is much rejoicing. It wasn’t in effect for most of the events this past weekend, about which there is much theatrical booing. Let’s see how this seasons villains fared on their final weekend at full power.

Today, we’re looking at:

  • The London Open (major)
  • The Renegade Icebreaker GT
  • Last of the Summer Winehammer
  • St. Louis Annual Last-minute Tournament (new Dataslate!)

On Friday we’ll be looking at:

  • Bedlam In The ‘Burgh (major)
  • Clash Of The Titans XVI
  • ForgeFire Open
  • Nemesis 40k

As you can see above, one event leapt straight into the fray and adopted the Dataslate, so they get a Showdown feature by default, and alongside two voted for by our Patrons that means we’ll be looking at:

  • Genestealer Cults vs. Tau at Last of the Summer Winehammer
  • Genestealer Cults vs. Thousand Sons at the St. Louis Annual Last-Minute Tournament
  • (Friday) Imperial Knights vs. Craftworlds at Bedlam In The ‘Burgh

Let’s begin our descent into the rogue’s gallery.

The London Open : April 40k

148-player, 6-round Grand Tournament in England United Kingdom on April 15 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

All of the top four in this event were undefeated in the swiss part of the tournament, and the top two played a final to decide the winner.

Mani Cheema – Dark Angels – 1st Place

Credit: Greg Chiasson

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Mixed Dark Angels

Final Round Matchup

95 – 78 Victory against Martyn Cooper – Astra Militarum.

Thoughts

Yup, there they are – Dark Angels (once again under the command of Mani Cheema) taking down the biggest event of the week, with Deathwing providing an immovable wall behind which Talonmasters and Desolation Squads can pick the opponent apart. It is worth shouting out a couple of new bits of tech here mind – Steadfast Example lets Mani spread ObSec more widely on the table, or really concentrate the extent to which the Deathwing can grab a key point, while Decisive Tactician provides a bit of extra reliability in getting the Deathwing into the fray without needing a Chaplain, freeing up points for more delicious Desolation squads. Spicy extra additions, but doesn’t change the fact that this archetype will shortly need a major rethink, joining a hall of infamy also populated by *checks notes* about half the armies Mani has played this edition.

Martyn Cooper – Astra Militarum – 2nd Place

Leman Russ Executioner. Credit: Rockfish
Leman Russ Executioner. Credit: Rockfish

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Born Soldiers with Scions

Thoughts

Just in case you were worried that the Dark Angels took out some heroic upstarts in the final – nope, it’s Born Soldiers Goodstuff, about which I do not have very much left to say. Luckily, I don’t need to think of anything nice from me to put here, because one of our Patrons asked me to include a shout out to Martyn – it was their first 40K event, and says Martyn was a fantastic opponent who provided loads of helpful advice and feedback after the game, really helping them get into the swing of things for the rest of the tournament. Just what we want to hear!

Lewis Smith – Disciples of Be’lakor – 3rd Place

Be’lakor, The Dark Master. Credit: Skails

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Disciples of Board Control

Thoughts

Now this is where things get interesting, because Daemons stand out as one of the best armies that didn’t catch any nerfs, and this looks like a particularly potent way of playing them. Daemon players have latched on to the three Fs (Fiends, Flesh Hounds and Flamers) as providing great value mobile pressure and board control, and running as Disciples of Be’lakor lets you augment that in two ways. First up, you get some actual meaningful shooting from the backfield via House Korvax that strongly secures home objectives at the same time. Second, and continuing that theme, because all Troops in a Disciples of Be’lakor army get ObSec without the normal SWARM exclusion for Daemons, you get to inflict Eighth Edition flashbacks on people with ObSec Nurglings, really trippling down on how well this army secures the board. Round out with access to the extremely good Blessing of Be’lakor Stratagem, which can be used to save your poor War Dogs from dying to a Railgun or something, and this seems like a super strong strategy that should thrive in act two of Arks. Well done to Lewis on the win.

Clement Tournade – Ynnari & Harlequins – 4th Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Melee Ynnari + Light

Thoughts

Another entry in “likely to thrive in Part 2 of 9th”, Ynnari have been consistently performing well (with Clement putting up some great results already this season), and their combination of mobility, precision killing, and particularly strong Behind Enemy Lines game makes them serious contenders. This build does particularly well at that Secondary thanks to the Harlequin contingent, and is also even more of a headache for opponents to try and handle than the average Yncarne list thanks to a trio of deadly assassin clowns to keep opposing characters (or lurking Desolation Squads/Mortars) scared. The nerf to the Finial is also particularly good news for this build, as it makes Mortars appreciably less good at taking down Starweavers. The only thing that might hold this army back is how much practice it takes to play to full effect – but that’s not a problem for Clement as he rounds out the undefeated placings.

The Best of the Rest

Everyone on 5-0 got into the top four, and for UKTC majors that’s where I tend to cut, because there’s always 20+ 4-1s, and only 5-0s ever make top cut.

The Icebreaker GT 2023 – Renegade Wargaming

55-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Roseville, MN US on April 15 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Connor Haugen – Deathwing – 1st Place

Credit: PierreTheMime

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Whoops all Deathwing

Final Round Matchup

85-72 Victory against James “Boon” Kelling – Craftworlds

Thoughts

…is this the last time? Am I finally free from writing about this army list? God I hope so.

I do appreciate Connor giving it a strong sendoff with a build that fully leans into the Deathwing nonsense – no mucking about with Desolation Squads, no cheeky Talonmasters behind the front lines, just a bone-clad wall of death with all the Character trimmings upon which all opponents broke (including our own James “Boon” Kelling in the final). Well done to Connor on taking the trophy and closing out the reign of terror in style.

Mark Weiss – Adeptus Custodes – 2nd Place

Custodes Vertus Praetors
Custodes Vertus Praetors. Credit: Jack Hunter

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Emperor’s Chosen Bike Spam

Thoughts

A bit of a throwback build here, getting back in on the massed jetbikes that defined early Custodes builds, and reminding people that the pressure they represent can be overwhelming if you let them get even the slightest drop on you. To find the points for them, Mark has squeezed in as much discount board control as possible, getting both some pre-game move action and cheap backfield/deep strike units at 60pts a pop. Also a big fan of seeing the nightmare murder Blade Champion build get a bit of airtime – if he can stay hidden he can basically fend off any sort of assault on the Custodes position all by himself.

Finally, I have another requested shout out here – this time for Mark pulling off the ultimate dad move and crushing (well, narrowly defeating) his son in round four, securing an undefeated finish while Nicolas ended up in third.

The Best of the Rest

There were 7 more players on 4-1 records. They were:

  • 3rd – Nicolas Weiss – Imperial Knights: Extra Aggressive Freeblade Lance with an Errant and Gallant.
  • 4th – Ben Cherwien – Black Templars: Mechanised Templars, with tonnes of Assault Intercessors in Impulsors, two Gladiators and an actual Repulsor.
  • 5th – James “Boon” Kelling – Craftworlds: High Volume Hail, using lots of Avengers, the Baharroth/Asurmen tag team, a big Windrider brick and several units of Warp Spiders and Shroud Runners to lock in Behind Enemy Lines.
  • 6th – Devin Orchard – Necrons: Nihilakh with lots of shooty Destroyers and two C’tan hiding behind a big brick each of Lychguard and Tomb Blades.
  • 7th – Brady Hanson – Astra Militarum: Born Soldiers Tank spam, combining lots of Russes, Tank Commanders and a Banesword.
  • 8th – Craig Parker – Tyranids: Gorgon Hormagaunts and Carnifexes.
  • 9th – Joseph Marrero – Khorne Daemons: Flesh Hounds, Bloodletters and Bloodthirsters, oh my! Also features Karanak as a cheap assassin.

Last Of The Summer Winehammer 4

48-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in England GB on April 15 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission – Abandoned Sanctuaries

Mike Porter – Genestealer Cult: Rusted Claw Mech & Neophytes
Army List - Click to Expand

vs.

Kyle Grundy – T’au Empire: Farsight Top-heavy Triptide
Army List - Click to Expand

Thoughts

Two armies here that have both adapted for the fairly harsh shooting metagame that Arks has given us, both at least partially by minimising how easy opponents can find soft targets. The Tau take the tack of going top heavy and mechanising the rest – the only thing getting wasted by early indirect here is Kroot Hounds, something worthy of not much more than a shrug. The Cult have to be a bit more devious, using a setup of Transports and Proficient Planning upgrades that lets them have their cake and eat it – lots of big Neophyte bricks, no requirement to put them on the table out the gate if they don’t want to. Rusted Claw also ensures that whatever they do put down gets picked away at significantly less, and allows the army to counterattack at speed when needed. I’m particularly amused by the From Every Angle Truck, presumably to allow the Kelermorph to set up capital-M mischief as much as possible, and sticking They Came From Below on one of the Jackals gives them a lot of reach for early Drive By Demolitions without having to commit to a location, and is particularly helpful on Abandoned Sanctuaries.

This mission does shut down a few of the Cults tricks, but probably not enough of them to deal with the key problem for the Tau here – they’re going to start off in a target-poor environment, and their passive scoring is a lot weaker. The cult can just do something like Broodswarm/Ambush/Retrieve Data and comfortably expect to score highly on them, and if Tau try and play a waiting game they’re going to find themselves locked out of a decent Primary score and struggling to make enough points on Secondaries to counteract that. I actually wonder if this is the rare Mont’ka game for the Tau, and if what they’re hoping for is to go first, ram a Riptide forward onto each objective and dare the Cult to try and shift them – that’s honestly not something they’re super well equipped to do on their first turn, and that start could potentially be followed up by a very aggressive clearout of the Cult’s on-table presence and some decent early scoring that might, maybe do enough? It’s a plan that can very much go wrong, but I suspect this is one of those matchups where a lot of potential plans just result in a grinding but fairly inevitable defeat, so maybe better to go down guns blazing?

Whether that was tried and failed, or whether the rolloff went against the Tau and largely removed it as an option (because I don’t think you can play that if the Cult can immediately counterattack with their reserves), the Greater Good wasn’t able to defeat a glorious people’s uprising on this day, and the Cult took a convincing win.

Result

Genestealer Cult Victory – 97 – 41

Mike Porter – Genestealer Cult – 1st Place

GSC Rockgrinders. Credit – Soggy

The List

See Showdown

Archetype

Mechanised Rusted Claw

Thoughts

Cults have historically struggled with indirect fire, and as mentioned in the Showdown the Rusted Claw choice here feels like a big nod to that. That helps the army stay on the table even when being fully bombarded, and the accumulated set of tricks Mike has here in order to enable a minimal/flexible deployment also provides a lot of options to blow out unsuspecting opponents. Of all the armies out there, Cult might be the biggest one to watch in the post-Dataslate world, as they’re already thriving and took an incredibly minimal nerf – yes Broodswarm is a lot less good, but Behind Enemy Lines is also available, and for a list like this seems an extremely easy replacement if you’re worried about Swarming. Mike is a player to watch whatever army he’s running, but if you’re a Cult fan you definitely want to be paying attention to his tech here.

The Best of the Rest

There were 8 more players on X-1 records. They were:

  • 2nd – David Irving – Iron Hands: Iron Hands with tonnes of Desolators and Speeder Scouts, plus a casual Astreaus.
  • 3rd – Paul Martin – Orks: An unusual board control mechanised Freebooterz list, presumably planning to leverage the Badskull Banner to close out enemies’ primary plans.
  • 4th – Stephen Platten – Genestealer Cult: Heavily Mechanised Rusted Claw.
  • 5th – Ricci Lowe – World Eaters: Invocatus Eighbound with an Indomitable Bloodthirster riding shotgun.
  • 6th – Thomas Douch – Astra Militarum: Sentinel-heavy Born Soldiers.
  • 7th – Joseph Grant – Harlequins: Heavy skew Harlequins, going for Light Saedath with as many Troupes as possible in boats, buying very few upgrades for them and relying on numbers and Secondary quality to carry the day.
  • 8th – Jacob Whitehouse – Tau: Farsight Enclaves with Riptides and Breacherfish.
  • 9th – Kyle Grundy – Tau: See Showdown.

2023 St. Louis Annual Last-minute Tournament

33-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in St. Louis, MO US on April 15 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

This event was using the new Balance Dataslate.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission – Death and Zeal

Ryan Verbeck – Genestealer Cult: Pauper Princes Neophytes and Bikes
Army List - Click to Expand

vs.

Connor Johnson – Thousand Sons: Duplicity with some Dreadblade shooty backup.
Army List - Click to Expand

Thoughts

Ah, speaking of Cult in post-dataslate world, here they are. This build is on the much more conventional body spamming plan, which would previously have been where Broodswam most shone, but Ryan’s high scores through the event serve to demonstrate how minimal the hit really is – it’s rarely worth, but it probably is still free 10pts in any game you’re winning with no work at all, and if you’re really worried? Just pivot to BEL and chuck a bunch of small units in deep strike. Up against them are the Thousand Sons, really revelling in people no longer being able to combo Abhor and Assassinate with a five-character build that’s particularly heavy on firepower. As Duplicity they also have a strong backup BEL plan (as if all else fails they can just hurl decreasingly expendable Sorcerors at the problem). Here they might just want to go for a more conventional Banners/Ritual/No Prisoners plan (maybe Prowess instead of Banners?) and aim to dominate the mid-board, because they are decently set up to chew through the cults if they can keep them at bay, with lots of volume firepower – as long as they don’t get badly alphaed.

The glaring issues here are twofold – the Cult are very well set up to punish widespread chip damage, which is what the Thousand Sons excel at delivering, and big turns with seismic cannons threaten to sweep a scary number of Rubricae off the table at once, perhaps leaving the Sons without enough assets to contest the board and dooming them to defeat. Access to Inescapable Forewarning is nice, but it’s not going to kill a full twenty model squad as they arrive, so the Seismics are going to get to safe pretty much whatever, and that’s a big challenge. The Cult do struggle a little to clear the Terminators out, which certainly helps, but even they have to be worried about getting high-rolled by the rock drills. It ultimately feels like the Thousand Sons are trying to juggle one too many things to really take this game over, and the score feels about right for that – not a blowout, but a convincing Cult victory.

Result

Genestealer Cult Victory – 96 – 75

Ryan Verbeck – Genestealer Cult – 1st Place

Genestealer Cults Acolyte Iconward
Genestealer Cults Acolyte Iconward. Credit: That Gobbo

The List

See Showdown

Archetype

Pauper Princes Neophytes and Bikers

Thoughts

I for one welcome our new purple overlords. Absurd numbers of bodies to chew through, decent spike damage on go turns, and some nasty tricks from all the Characters – what’s not to love? Assuming you’re playing it, anyway. If this is what the metagame looks like then serious, dedicated anti-horde options are what’s going to be required to stop the star gods from devouring us all giving us all a big hug. Congratulations to their herald and harbinger Ryan.

The Best of the Rest

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

  • 2nd – Cory Schulz – Necrons: Actual Warrior Spam, going with Relentlessly Expansionist for early speed and Unyielding to make them a bit more durable.
  • 3rd – John Teets – Black Templars: Templars with a tonne of hover tanks and a big Terminator brick.
  • 4th – Nicholas Rupel – Chaos Daemons: Bloodthirster and Big Bird alongside a otnne of the three Fs and a pair of Tormentbringers in chariots.
  • 5th – Richard Windau – Votann: Top-heavy Ymyr 2Fort, packing a full unit of Hearthguard alongside the big tanks.
  • 6th – Connor Johnson – Thousand Sons: See Showdown.

Wrap Up

That’s it for part 1, part 2 on Friday as we see off the last few pre-Dataslate events.

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