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Competitive Innovations in 9th: Even Angels Fall pt.2

By James "One_Wing" Grover

Really the entire story of this website has been me finding ways to make a rod for my own back. It turns out my latest success in this area is that, by splitting this into two parts and listing out all the events in part one, it gives a chance for any TOs whose events were missed by my elite spy network due to being on weird days of the week, in unusual places on the internet, or cunningly disguised as events that haven’t started yet, a chance to DM me on Discord to ask why I’m mad at them and make sad eyes at me, adding ever more work to my prodigious in-tray.

Thanks to this, today we will be looking at six events instead of the planned four, covering:

  • Bedlam in the ‘Burgh (Major)
  • The Alpine Cup Singles (Major)
  • Clash of Titans XVI
  • Hellstorm All-stars Heat 2 (New Dataslate!)
  • ForgeFire Open
  • Nemesis 40k

If you’re looking for any of the following events go check out part 1 from Wednesday:

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

Unfortunately late notice means I don’t have time to add additional showdowns, so just one today, and let’s head straight in.

40k Major 2023 Bedlam In The ‘Burgh

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

This event is part of the UTC, and you can find lots of pictures from this week’s roundup post.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission – The Scouring

Marcus Kehoe – Imperial Knights: Taranis with a durability-focused Errant and lots of War Dogs.
Army List - Click to Expand

vs.

Brad Chester – Asuryani: Ulthwe with lots of Aspect Warriors, tooled up Farseers and Karandras, plus three solo War Walkers with lances.
Army List - Click to Expand

Thoughts

A great showdown here, featuring two builds that mix up the formula a bit. In the elf corner, Brad’s running an Ulthwe list that looks a bit like Hail of Doom in the elite slot, featuring lots of Dire Avengers. Elsewhere it packs plenty of tools better suited to the reliability of Ulthwe, using small Aspect units and lance war walkers, the former of whom love extra Strands to play with, the latter which enjoy the wound re-roll per unit. Kharandras rounds things out, and in combination with all the Walkers, Rangers and Scorpions gives this army at least an option on deploying hyper aggressively then pulling back with Phantasm if the roll off goes bad, potentially a great plan into some guard and Marine builds.

Not so much in this game, obviously, as getting right into the face of a bunch of Warglaives is perhaps not the best plan. This Knight list is very metagame-tuned, maximising durability via Taranis, and building an Errant that can soak up Guard or Iron Hands shooting far better than most, ensuring it sticks around to hand out key buffs. The Scouring tends to be a pretty good mission for Knights, as it draws enemy units closer to them, and plays very well to their Secondaries and ObSec pressure.

The Aeldari definitely don’t love trying to deal with the ObSec aspect of the Knights, but have the big advantage here that they should be able to just body the Knights off the table, as long as they manage to clear out the nasty Lightning Lock Moirax early on. The Knights are well set up to deal with opponents coming at them with lots of D2 and D3 attacks, but outside the Star Lance spear squad (who can potentially just come out of deep strike to threaten the Bastard Helm model or something), the Eldar aren’t really packing those – it’s massed D1 or bright lances on the menu, and that’s rough to deal with. They also aren’t massively forced into overextending either – their Secondary plan is great here, assuming they chuck some Rangers into the Webway to lock in BEL, as add together that, Bring it Down and either Wrath or a Psychic Option and then in any version of this game they’re winning, you’re probably dealing with 40pts on Secondaries minimum. If they go first, they can supplment that with near unstoppable 9pts from the Mission Primary, and once they have that they can just cruise through on two objectives a turn to achieve a pretty unassailable total.

In contrast, the Knights have to play a bit more aggressively, which lets the Craftworlds control how their threats clash, exactly what Eldar want to do. Strands of Fate will be particularly strong here, as if it’s only the melta Armigers shooting at the War Walkers the shots will probably just bounce off, while the lances will probably do for a Knight a turn before the Aspect warriors even get involved. With that in mind, I think the Knights have to go very aggressive, bringing the Errant into play right from the start and using Full Tilt plus Advance/Charge to try and put extreme and immediate pressure on the elves. Quite a few of their units are actively worse on the defensive, and Kharandras is a bit of a dud into an all Vehicle list where his Mortals don’t work, so making enough of a dent in the Eldar list quickly that they can’t handle the pressure seems the best chance of winning, though far from certain. Knights did score well here, so potentially they tried that and it didn’t quite get there, but the Aeldari emerged triumphant.

Result

Asuryani Victory – 100 – 85

Brad Chester – Asuryani – 1st Place

Credit: Keewa

The List

See showdown.

Archetype

Ulthwe Goodstuff

Thoughts

Mostly covered in the showdown – it’s very fragile and needs extreme care to play, but gets massive amounts of value packed into its two Farseers, can play very aggressively if needed via forward deploying then Phantasming back, and has reliable Secondary play. That’s the sort of stuff that wins events, so well done to Brad for taking the trophy.

Thomas Ogden – Astra Militarum – 2nd Place (Undefeated)

Lord Solar. Credit: Rockfish
Lord Solar. Credit: Rockfish

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Born Soldiers Goodstuff with Scions

Thoughts

Nothing much left to say about this build, I’m afraid – it’s so very lethal in the shooting phase that it’s tempted well-known Tau fan Thomas away from his favoured faction, and that’s really saying something! Taking both Scout Sentinels and Scions does allow this build to control the board a bit more effectively than most at only a marginal cost to lethality, and the option is certainly worth keeping an eye on, especially with the Finial becoming a bit less effective at clipping through hit modifiers.

Matt Tarantine – Black Templars – 3rd Place

Chaplain Grimaldus. Credit: SRM

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Black Templars Gladiators and Redemptors

Thoughts

Black Templars are on the “factions to watch” list as we transition into part two of Arks, becuase as Matt’s success here shows they already had the chops to push into top placings, and lose quite a lot less than Dark Angels. This build is heavy on the shooting, sure, but they feel better placed to try and still play Codex Warfare after the nerf, have a great set of abilities and buffs available, and an extremely broad array of valid options thanks to access to Relic Bearers, configurable vows and great named Characters. This build is heavily on the Uphold the Honour of the Emperor plan, strapping a 5+ invulnerable save to all those tanks and Redemptors while they blast the opponent to bits, and also leveraging access to one of the best Chapter Masters to cheaply buff the Desolation Squad. Bringing The Aurillian Shroud along also gives these the option to pop out for some direct fire at a key moment, and clever use of Devout Push might let them dodge the indirect penalty for a turn and still sneak back to safety after, all great stuff.

What’s wild is that this barely scrapes the surface of what Templars can do – you can go Crusader spam, Shooty Impulsor spam, Melee MSU with tonnes of relic upgrades, just a whole bunch of options. This one is very direct, but also clearly extremely effective, and well done to Matt on taking bronze.

Marcus Kehoe – Imperial Knights – 4th Place

Armiger Warglaives. Credit: Kevin Genson

The List

See Showdown

Archetype

Taranis

Thoughts

Yet another faction to watch, this time because Deathwing were so especially a problem for Knight armies to deal with. Guns are still going to be playing a big part in the metagame going forward, and I like how this list adapts to that – being able to hand out buffs from the Errant is critical, and taking Forgemaster (stacked on top of the extra durability from Taranis) lets you pivot to playing more cautiously with it against peak shooting armies. We’re back in a world where flat D2 and D3 is a big part of what’s killing you, making Forgemaster (plus locked-in Bondsman buffs from the Helm) an extremely effective counter, and I’m pleased to see such smart choices being rewarded by a place in the final, where tragically it ran into an army without much in between a bright lance and a shuriken. Congratulations Marcus.

The Best of the Rest

There were 10 more players on 4-1 records. They were:

  • 5th – David Adelman – Ynnari & Harlequins: A potent all-rounder Ynnari/Light Saedath build, using a big melee Troupe, melee aspects, Wraithseers and D-Cannons in the Ynnari part and the tooled up Death Jester plus an objective unit in the Light Patrol. Interesting use of non-D-cannon Wraithseers, who do seem pretty good in Ynnari, avoiding spending points on any squishy Warlocks to get Battle casts in.
  • 6th – Mike Norton – World Eaters: Invocatus Eightbound with a couple of War Dog Brigands.
  • 7th= – Scott Ferguson – Dark Angels: Mixed Deathwing/Ravenwing/Desolation Dark Angels.
  • 7th= – Matthew Burgoon – Craftworlds: Avatar Ulthwe backed by Falcons and D-cannons.
  • 9th – Brenton Weiss – Tau: Aggro Farsight with some Breacherfish and small Crisis Teams to throw out with Drop Zone Clear. Cunning use of Airbursts on the drop squads, as with full re-rolls they’re going to do work in clearing out something like Kasrkin.
  • 10th – Adam Speicher – Necrons: Novokh built around the Silent King, two big Warrior bricks and two full Skorpekh units, plus a Night Scythe for turn two power plays with Prismatic Dimensional Breach.
  • 11th – Gil Rivera – Chaos Daemons: Two Bloodthirsters backed by lots of Flamers, Pink Horrors and Flesh Hounds.
  • 12th – Joshua Minnich – Tzeentch Daemons: Be’lakor backed by all the spiciest minions of Tzeentch, particularly those that shoot fire at people.
  • 13th – Sam Dayton – Space Wolves Successors: Melee pressure Wolves, taking loads of small melee units with Hungry for Battle and Whirlwind.
  • 14th – Michael Fox – Astra Militarum: Born Soldiers Goodstuff with a Rogal Dorn and some counter-charge Rough Riders.

Alpine Cup Singles

All the lists for this event can be found in TourneyKeeper.

The event appears to have been using 20-0 scoring for games and as first tie break, but still taking wins as the main determinant of victory.

Antonín ‘Atlant’ Man – Dark Angels – 1st Place

Credit; Greg Chiasson

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Mixed Dark Angels

Final Round Matchup

11-9 victory vs. Dominik “Avang” Tavernaro – Salamanders

Why it’s Interesting in 9th

Can you fit all three of a Deathwing, Ravenwing and Desolator contingent into a single list? Apparently yes, and it’s very good when you do that! While Deathwing are mostly departing these shores, it wouldn’t shock me to see Ravenwing/Desolation Squad lists performing well in the future, so while this is definitely the last gasp of the Dark Angels monster at full power, don’t be surprised if we still see some success from them. Well done to Antonín for contributing to a glorious final week of dominance for the Unforgiven.

TJ Lanigan – Tzeentch Daemons – 2nd Place (Undefeated)

Credit: Robert “TheChirurgeon” Jones

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Tzeentch Daemons

Why it’s Interesting in 9th

Increasing numbers of US players are getting team event pilled (a development I believe to be somehow Innes’ doing), and so the Alpine Cup’s double header of a big singles and big teams event lured some big names across varying numbers of oceans. Most successful of them in the singles was TJ, putting in another strong performance with his Tzeentch Daemons build. This is, to all intents and purposes, basically the perfect counter to any shooty list, while still having enough sneaky tricks and horde clearing tools to give it a shot against pressure lists that want to body it, and I’d be very, very surprised if we’d heard the last from either this army or TJ for the season.

William “Willking” Fuhrimann – Votann – 3rd Place (Undefeated with a draw)

Ûthar the Destined. Credit: Rockfish
Ûthar the Destined. Credit: Rockfish

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Crunchy GTL Goodstuff

Why it’s Interesting in 9th

Speaking of shooty armies – here we’ve got a list that’s absolutely stuffed with guns, while being carefully tuned to minimise the chip damage it takes from enemy indirect. It does the latter by only going for crunchy choices, notably sizing the Thunderkyn units so two can start in the Fortresses, keeping plenty of threat on the table and only leaving one to go into reserves. Bikes, the reserved Thunderkyn and a Warpestryk unit also ensure this list has the mobility to capitalise on an opening if one appears, and it feels nice and adaptable overall. Tough enough to take a punch, shooty enough to hit back twice as hard – perfect Votann energy from William.

Wolfgang “Unterzahl” Stocker – Chaos Daemons – 4th Place (Undefeated with a draw)

Credit: Svbfloorvg

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Fs in the chat (Daemon Board Control)

Why it’s Interesting in 9th

An alternative spin on Daemons to round out the top four from the alpine cup, here leaning heavily on the three Fs to flood the table with speedy, dangerous killers, an Infernal Enrapturess to launch Daemonettes from deep strike in an emergency (a popular move this week as we’ll see) and a big, tooled-up bird to grind down opponents as they flail at the mid-tier bodies that are swarming them. Daemons have lots of valid builds right now (as this top four shows) and this is only more true with Deathwing bricks removed from the metagame, so look for Chaos on the rampage in the next few months, perhaps with Wolfgang at the head.

The Rest of the Best

There were 10 more players on 4-1 records. They were:

  • 5th – Matt “Tanker” Bonnet – Chaos Daemons: Fs in the chat, this time with War Dogs and Be’lakor behind them.
  • 6th – Mate Csaszar – World Eaters: Invocatus Beserker and Eightbound spam.
  • 7th – Nelson Rodriguez – World Eaters: Invocatus Beserker and Eightbound spam, but with a War Dog.
  • 8th – Shardz – World Eaters: Invocatus Beserker and Eightbound spam, but with two War Dogs.
  • 9th – Dominik “Avang” Tavernaro – Salamanders Successors: Hungry/Warded Successors with loads of Aggressors to take advantage of the Salamander superdoctrine and stratagems, plus big brawling melee units of Terminators and Vanvets. Came within a hair’s breadth of winning the whole thing, so clearly no joke!
  • 10th – Paweł Czyszczoń – Adeptus Custodes: Solar Watch double Warden brick.
  • 11th – Arne Zerndt – Dark Angels: Deathwing/Desolation with Talonmasters.
  • 12th – Videx – Votann: Ymyr 2Fort with 3×6 bikes riding alongside.
  • 13th – Antonio Mejias – Iron Hands: All-rounder hands, mixing shooting elements with a big Terminator Assault Squad to dominate the mid-board.
  • 14th – Niklas “p4per” Lackne – Dark Angels: Mixed Deathwing/Ravenwing.

Clash Of The Titans XVI

50-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Cherrybrook, NSW AU on April 14 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Brodie Middleton – Astra Militarum – 1st Place

Scout Sentinel. Rockfish
Scout Sentinel. Rockfish

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Born Soldiers Goodstuff

Final Round Matchup

97 – 68 Victory against Eugene Orlov – Adeptus Custodes.

Thoughts

After years honing his skills in the UK metagame, Brodie has been unleashed upon the Australian scene and takes a trophy here with a powerful Born Soldiers build featuring Sly Marbo, who I think a lot of people are sleeping on. Is he a traitor for not playing Craftworlds? Absolutely. Does he get congratulations anyway? I guess.

The Best of the Rest

There were 8 more players on 4-1 records. They were:

  • 2nd – Ewart Searle – Astra Militarum: Born Soldiers Goodstuff with some Death Riders as a unique draw.
  • 3rd – Eugene Orlov – Adeptus Custodes & Freeblades: Double-bike Emperor’s Chosen Custodes with a pair of Helverins to pick up some shooting kills while the opponent handles that.
  • 4th – Jordan McGregor – Thousand Sons & Daemons: Thousand Sons with a big Scarab brick and a Lord of Change hiding at the back.
  • 5th – Lee Connor – Astra Militarum: Born Soldiers Goodstuff with a bulked up Scion Patrol, using ten-model squads as an actual threat rather than pure objective play.
  • 6th – Patrick Spooner – Imperial Knights: Taranis with a Knight of Mars Paladin and lots of Armigers.
  • 7th – Gary Morris – Votann: GTL going for a much larger and more tooled-up Troops contingent than normal.
  • 8th – Joshua Brodie – Tzeentch Daemons: Another Tzeentch cookout, using a Warp Tether Daemon Prince for serious deep strike flexibility.
  • 9th – Ethan McDonald – Astra Militarum: Yet another Born Soldiers Goodstuff.

Hellstorm All Stars Heat 2

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

This event was using the new Balance Dataslate.

Josh Roberts – Space Wolves Successors – 1st Place

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

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Space Wolves Upgrade Bonanza

Final Round Matchup

100-64 Victory vs. Dom Maidlow – Chaos Daemons

Why it’s Interesting in 9th

With their old rivals the Dark Angels taken down a peg, the stage looks set for Space Wolves to dominate. Wolves have a great superdoctrine, a lethal unique pressure tool from Wulfen, and a unique ability to strap extra melta weapons and Terminator sergeants to a bunch of units at a bumper price. This list packs lots of jump pack models alongside the Wulfen, putting the opponent under heavy pressure and giving the Long Fangs/Desolation Squads a chance to do some serious work. Keen Senses is king for the shooty stuff here, allowing the Long Fangs to operate in a mobile fashion while still firing at full effect, or the Desloation marines to go full nightmare on something.

Even more so than Templars, all the meltaguns here mean this army is very ready to take a crack at a decent score on Codex Warfare, which combines with Warrior Pride and Oaths to mean you’re basically never going to have a truly bad set of Secondaries with this list, a very potent combo with powerful multi-phase killing power. Well done to Josh for taking a trophy here, adding to the coveted Goonhammer Belt already in his collection.

The Rest of the Best

Three more players finished on 5-1 records. They were:

  • 2nd – Christopher Langton – Necrons: Nihilakh with lots of Wraiths, Tomb Blades and Lokhusts, plus the Void Dragon and Silent King.
  • 3rd – Mark Pilkington – Genestealer Cult: Industrial Cult Neophyte/Jackal spam with a squad of Purestrains for early pressure.
  • 4th – Connor Nicholls – Adeptus Custodes: An unusual grindy Emperor’s Chosen list, spending the vast majority of points on lots of Sagittarum and lots of Allarus. The latter, of course, can do some very funny things using Esteemed Amalgam and Unleash the Lions, and the former (with the Fulminaris Aggressor in tow) are very reliable at chipping opponents away, and this looks like a pretty daunting build to try and go into with any sort of pressure army.

ForgeFire Open

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

Matt Root – Deathskulls – 1st Place

Big Mek in Mega Armour. Credit: Rockfish
Big Mek in Mega Armour. Credit: Rockfish

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Deathskulls Elite ObSec

Final Round Matchup

100 – 69 Victory against Kevin Leonard – Tzeentch Daemons.

Thoughts

Some truly incredible Waaagh energy from Matt here, achiving the coveted acolade of a perfect 500/500 pts across the five rounds of this event. It’s easy to see why – this build is astoundingly good at pressuring the primary, doesn’t fold to some of the common anti-horde out there thanks to packing lots of Meganobz, and has great Secondary play from the Grots doing Get Da’ Good Bitz and other board control options. The Kans also work great as a second wave of mid-table durability, and if they’re escorting one of the crunchy foot characters they can still lean on ObSec as well. This build feels very much like a second coming of how Necrons could play in Nephilim, and should be a serious contender going forward, great stuff from Matt.

Justin Curtis – Iron Warriors & Daemons – 2nd Place (Undefeated)

Credit: Robert “TheChirurgeon” Jones

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Iron Warrior Crunch

Thoughts

A very unique and interesting build from Justin here, addressing the challenge Chaos Marines currently have via only packing relatively crunchy toys, and ones that can lay down some pretty brutal firepower to boot. Obliterators are nasty into quite a lot of armies, Venomcrawlers are just great value, and the big Rune Possessed brick will scare the hell out of opponents while dying very hard. Past that, I love the use of the Daemon Patrol to mitigate what might be a weakness of the army, which is getting tied up by chaff and losing on ObSec. Multiple Warps Locus scattered around the list means that the ObSec Daemonettes can reliably sweep in from deep strike in an emergency, potentially leaving the enemy in a position of having thrown away some threats for nothing. Just a really clever way of putting tools together all around, and fantastic to see Justin taking this to a 5-0 finish.

The Best of the Rest

There were 5 more players on 4-1 records. They were:

  • 3rd – Derek Glassman – Steel Legion: Dorn Soldiers.
  • 4th – Benjamin Frederiksen – Iron Hands Successors: Shooty Artisans Successors.
  • 5th – Kevin Leonard – Tzeentch Daemons: Tzeentchs flaming/flying circus.
  • 6th – John Van Dusen – Astra Militarum: Born Soldiers Goodstuff.
  • 7th – Alexander Holt – Tau: Farsight Enclaves going for a few more esoteric tools – Pathfinders, Broadsides and Hazards (alongside a pair of Riptides).

Nemesis 40k Spring 2023

32-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Edmonton, Alberta CA on April 15 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Michael Blanchet – Iron Hands – 1st Place

Space Marine Astraeus
Space Marine Astraeus. Credit: Pendulin

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Big Tank and the Tankettes

Final Round Matchup

97 – 79 Victory against Scotty Bee – Necrons.

Thoughts

We love a big tank here at Goonhammer. I don’t really have anything much to say about this army, but we do love it. Just an endless wall of guns, hovering inexorably towards the enemy and crushing their hopes and dreams. Simple as. Well done Michael.

The Best of the Rest

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

  • 2nd – Scotty Bee – Necrons: Nihilakh with lots of Wraiths and Scarabs, Heavy Destroyers, Szarekh, and a Convergence of Dominion.
  • 3rd – Dave Cruickshank – Orks: Goff Pressure with Ghaz and some big melee bombs.
  • 4th – Nathan Sgrazzutti – Black Legion: Abaddon and the boys, making the interesting call to stick the Black Rune on the big Biker brick rather than the Terminators, presumably calculating that the impact will be higher with their T5.
  • 5th – Darren Jac – Ultramarines: Guilliman and 30 Desolation Marines, which I’m pretty sure violates at least some state laws if you carry it across a border in your KRs.

Wrap Up

We now look forward to one weekend of fully fledged Balance Dataslate action to warm us all up for Warhammer Fest – will Cults and Daemons dominate, or are their some surprise builds ready to pounce now that the Deathwing menace has been blunted? Tune in next week to find out.

 

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