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Competitive Innovations in 9th: Last Book Standing pt.2

By James "One_Wing" Grover

We’re back for the second half of this week’s events, seeing what other books can still challenge for the top spot. This half…is maybe not as varied as the first. Just saying.

  • The Alamo GT ‘23 (major)
  • Death or Glory Invitational
  • Slagmark Fyn 2023
  • Ragnarok Spring 2023 : 40k ITC
  • Bembel Clash #7

On Wednesday we looked at:

  • Elbcoast Major/Baltic Cup XI (major)
  • Richmond Open 40K Major (major)
  • Grimdark 13: The Grand Tournament 3
  • There Is Only War Part 2 40k GT
  • Dice Goblin’s First Warhammer 40K 2000pt GT
  • Capital Clash Spring ’23 Grand Tournament

The Alamo GT ‘23

128-player, 6-round Grand Tournament in San Antonio, TX US on May 06 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission – Tear Down Their Icons

Junior Aflleje – Leagues of Votann: No-fort Ymyr, instead maxing out on Bikes and taking three units of Thunderkyn.
Army List - Click to Expand

vs.

Justin Moore – Cult Mechanicus: Pressure Lucius, mixing a lot of Skitarii with an alarming number of Dragoons, ready to roll through the enemy.
Army List - Click to Expand

Thoughts

Two builds that are varying degrees off the beaten path here. No-Fort Ymyr has been seen a few times, able to pack in quite a few more units by avoiding the expensive units like Forts and full Hearthguard blocks, which is definitely an asset on this mission. The AdMech build is definitely more unique, leveraging extra durability from Lucius and the relatively aggressive price tag on Dragoons to really put the opponent under the gun.

Realistically, this game is all about whether Votann can wipe the AdMech out fast enough to avoid getting bullied off the Primary. They don’t really have any melee threats, so if the Dragoons start tagging units on multiple fronts then they represent a serious problem. Unfortunately for the AdMech, the Votann are very capable of smashing through their forces – Bikes are great at picking off Skitarii, making a reasonable impact even with the extra Lucius defences, and the grav Thunderkyn are excellent here, providing highchip damage to clear out Fragoons and high volume and AP to help with the hordes. I think AdMech’s best bet here is to go hard with deep strikes and redeploys to try and shortcut their way into a close engagement, and aim to keep the Votann bundled up from there. Bleeding a kill Secondary from all the Dragoons isn’t fantastic for them, but they can make the Votann’s life difficult on most other Secondary fronts, so if they can curtail the Primary as well they’re in a good spot. Without some very spicy charge rolls from a massed Deep Strike/Redeploy, however, I think the damage race is skewed too far towards the Votann for that to really matter, and that seems to be about how things played out.

Result

Leagues of Votann Victory – 87 – 60

Junior Aflleje – Leagues of Votann – 1st Place

Hernkyn Pioneer. Credit: Rockfish
Hernkyn Pioneer. Credit: Rockfish

The List

See showdown

Archetype

No-Fort Ymyr

Thoughts

As per the showdown, this build trades the obnoxious unkillability of the Land Fortress for better board coverage and some extra flexibility. That’s one of those trades that loses you some “free wins” against armies that flat can’t deal with you rolling a fort at you, but gives you more angles of attack to play with in your tougher matchups, which looks to have been a good trade for Junior here.

Colin McDade – Slaanesh Daemons – 2nd Place (Undefeated)

Credit: Liebot – https://instagram.com/liebot_pics

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Slaanesh Daemons

Thoughts

We’ve had lots of pure Tzeentch lists succeeding, and now it’s apparently Slaanesh’s turn, trading the absurd shooting resilience that Tzeentch has for speed and melee pressure. That definitely forces you to play a more active game against the shooty lists of the meta, relying on locking them down in melee and carving through them, but while that’s probably a bit less reliable in those games you have far more options against heavy melee builds like World Eaters and Space Wolves, able to challenge them at their own game. Colin smashed through some lists that I think might have given Tzeentch some serious difficulties, so it looks like this was a good call for the metagame – good work.

William Abilez – T’au Sept – 3rd Place

XV95 Ghostkeel. Credit: Rockfish
XV95 Ghostkeel. Credit: Rockfish

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Go-wide Tau Sept

Thoughts

A weird and wonderful Tau list here, packing in lots of small units to take advantage of Tau Sept’s re-rolls and achieve wide board coverage. I’d guess the goal there is to add some Secondary options, and I can certainly see BEL being a bit more spicy here than normal, helping Tau push for higher scores than the 97 they’re normally capped at. Obviously “shoot them dead” is still a major part of the plan, including the rather unorthdox choice of a Tidewall Gunrig for shooty Pathfinders to hide in. It’s different, certainly, and while I’m not sure I’d pick it over the regular Tau stuff, it’s fun to see less common choices on the table, and going 5.5-0.5 is no mean feat.

Samuel Cook – Astra Militarum – 4th Place

Credit: Crab-Stuffed Mushrooms

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Born Soldiers Goodstuff

Thoughts

Nothing much to say here, other than that somehow managing to squeeze five Russes and a Dorn into a Guard list is an eye-watering feat.

The Best of the Rest

There were 8 more players on 5-1 records. They were:

  • 5th – Kit Smith Hanna – Chaos Daemons: Anti-shooting monsters (Be’lakor and Kairos) with lots of Daemonettes and the three Fs backing them up.
  • 6th – Justin Moore – Cult Mechanicus: See showdown.
  • 7th – Brad Townsend – Thousand Sons: Go-wide Duplicity with two small Terminator units and 3×5 Spawn.
  • 8th – Brandon Vickers – Votann: GTL 2Fort.
  • 9th – Sweet Lew – Leagues of Votann: All-rounder Ymyr with one Fortress and some Sagitaurs.
  • 10th – Clifton Russell – Genestealer Cult: Heavily Mechanised Industrial Cult.
  • 11th – Jake Gonzalez – Goffs: Goff pressure with Ghaz and Rigs.
  • 12th – John Cook – Space Wolves: Actual Space wolves with infantry toys and a unit of Thundercav, sporting Arjac Rockfist to lead them to battle.

Death or Glory Invitational

46-player, 6-round Grand Tournament in Berkley, MI US on May 06 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission – Death and Zeal

Brad Chester – Space Wolves: Free equipment spam.
Army List - Click to Expand

vs.

Jackmerius Tacktheritrix – World Eaters: Invocatus Eightbound Spam with a Dreadclaw
Army List - Click to Expand

Thoughts

This matchup is an excellent showcase for what’s making these two factions tick right now. On the one hand, Space Wolves now get a truly obnoxious number of upgrades for free, transforming them from a faction that’s focused on melee to a true multi-phase army – I think there is basically zero chance of the World Eaters winning any sort of damage race here. On the other, however, World Eaters Secondaries are so good in a game that’s destined to be a bloodbath that on some missions it might not matter – all they have to do is keep Wolves off the Primary for a few turns while counting their Secondaries to 45 and that’s the game.

Death and Zeal definitely swings this matchup towards the Wolves, however. World Eaters are definitely going to run out of stuff in this game, especially because Wulfen will take whatever kills them in melee with them, and on a corner deployment with hold 1/2 I don’t think they’ll be able to shut the Wolves down for long enough to land the win. I’d say this was potentially anyone’s game on The Scouring or Tide of Conviction, but here I’m expecting the World Eaters to get mostly tabled around turn three and the Wolves to have the time to max their score from there. The minions of Khorne picked up an alarmingly good score despite that, but the Wolves did manage to nearly max their score, which given  the World Eaters plan has to revolve around tanking their Primary, suggests they took over the game fairly fast.

Result

Space Wolves Victory – 96 – 84

Brad Chester – Space Wolves – 1st Place

Credit: Kevin Stillman

The List

See Showdown

Archetype

Space Wolves Upgrade Spam

Thoughts

Space Wolves just get so. Much. Stuff. It’s beatable – with very careful play you can just about grind them out, especially if you take down the Wulfen at range, but you basically have no margin for error, especially if the Wolves player is judicious about how they ration out their threats. Well done to Brad on taking them to the trophy.

The Best of the Rest

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

  • 2nd – Brandon Vallee – Dark Angels: Lots of Ravenwing shooting with a few Deathwing Command Squads as objective holders.
  • 3rd – Lyle Dixon – Salamanders: Aggressors and attack bikes galore with Vulkan at the helm.
  • 4th – Joshua Minnich – Tzeentch Daemons:  The Be’lakor/Big Bird spin on Tzeentch.
  • 5th – Jackmerius Tacktheritrix – World Eaters: See showdown.
  • 6th – Bill Kim – Disciplies of Be’lakor: Board control from a wide variety of Daemons and brutal pressure from a trio of Karnivores.

Slagmark Fyn 2023

44-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Aarup, DK on May 06 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Rasmus Olesen – Iron Hands Successors – 1st Place

Rainbow Warrior Eradicators by Craig “MasterSlowPoke” Sniffen

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Shooty Iron Hands

Final Round Matchup

84 – 48 Victory against Marcus Jensen – Hive Fleet Behemoth.

Thoughts

It’s the consensus pick for best build in the game right now, and you all know the stuff by now. This version shows off how you can use Combat Squads to squeeze in extra models past slot limits, but otherwise it’s very much business as usual – brutal shooting that’s tough to hide from, and enough units that it’s very hard to race. Congratulations to Rasmus.

Jakob Skovsbo – Astra Militarum – 2nd Place (Undefeated)

Death Korps of Krieg. Rockfish
Death Korps of Krieg. Rockfish

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Infantry Spam

Thoughts

Incredibly on-brand for Krieg, this one. Wave after wave of Astra Militarum soldiers to throw onto the enemy, chipping away with special weapons and maxing Secondaries with incredible reliability. Not complicated, but one of those lists that asks a very tough question of the enemy and has an almost unconquerable game plan if they can’t answer it. Plausibly struggles into something like horde Orks, but otherwise? Very tough to stop, and no one managed it, great innvoative stuff from Jakob.

The Best of the Rest

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

  • 3rd – David Thomsen – Adeptus Custodes: A vicious brawling Shadowkeepers list with a big Warden brick and a trio of Contemptors at the heart.
  • 4th – Killi Paaske – Craftworlds: Triple Phoenix Lord Ulthwe with lots of aspects and small position holders backing them up.
  • 5th – Michael Eriksen – Astra Militarum: Born Soldiers with an extra dose of Infantry, helping it flood the board and push Secondaries.
  • 6th – Frederik Larsen – Astra Militarum: Born Soldiers with lots of Infantry and a pair of Dorns.
  • 7th – Marcus Jensen – Tyranids: All-rounder Behemoth with a mix of monsters and Gaunt carpets.

Ragnarok Spring 2023 : 40k ITC

31-player, 6-round Grand Tournament in England GB on May 06 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Baz Croucher – Iron Hands Successors – 1st Place

Rainbow Warriors Primaris Apothecary by Craig “MasterSlowPoke” Sniffen

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

All-rounder Iron Hands

Final Round Matchup

74 – 61 Victory against Thomas Hicks – Adeptus Custodes.

Thoughts

A few interesting choices here – more melee pressure, and Successor tactics skewed towards durability rather than killing power. I’m guessing the calculus is that the Iron Hands stratagems, superdoctrine and superdread provide enough killing power that you can still create an insurmountable damage advantage by building for resilience rather than even more killing, reducing the risk of getting spiked out in some games. Seems to have worked (though is otherwise mostly in line with standard Hands stuff.

The Best of the Rest

There were 2 more players on 5-1 records. They were:

  • 2nd – Thomas Hicks – Adeptus Custodes: Emissaries Sagitarrum spam.
  • 3rd – Daniel Berris – Necrons: Angry Novokh with big units of Flayed Ones and Lychguard, lots of Skorpekh and a Monolith.

Bembel Clash #7

30-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Hirzenhain, HE DE on May 06 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Jan Reisenauer – Iron Hands Successors – 1st Place

Credit: Colin Ward

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Shooty Iron Hands

Final Round Matchup

17 – 3 Victory against Dennis Rau – Aeldari.

Thoughts

Aaaaand we’re back to shooty Iron Hands.

(well done to Jan, and apologies that you’re in the unfortunate spot of being the third event-winning Hands list in a row)

The Best of the Rest

There were 3 more players on 4-1 records. They were:

  • 2nd – Jan Poljak – Imperial Knights: Taranis with the Crusader/Princeps Paladin setup as the centrepiece.
  • 3rd – Daniel Nau – Orks: Goff Pressure with souble Squigosaur and some Kill Rigs.
  • 4th – Dennis Rau – Craftworlds: Hail of Doom with loads of Avengers and a big Windrider block.

Wrap Up

See there was some fun stuff in the first half, but now I’ve written about three Iron Hands lists in a row. Rlol on Tenth Edition, when we shall finally be free of that books wicked grasp.

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