It’s been a completely wild few weeks in Australia, but after two consecutive three day majors they’ve still managed to put a thirty player GT into the books for us to take a look at, this week put together by the Tasmanian 40K group. Once again, I can only salute their national dedication to keeping competitive 40K going strong in these dark times, and also bringing us a very different selection of lists each week, because this time around Space Marines are back. 

Anyone who’s been paying attention over the last few weeks will know, of course, that this wasn’t the only event keeping the flame alive at the weekend. The Las Vegas Nopen was a resounding success, providing some fantastic entertainment for the community and raising well over $7,000 for charity (at last count) thanks to the generosity of the viewers. Across 15 incredible games of 40K played out by the finest in the business we witnessed top-tier tactical play, underdog lists pulling huge upsets and some big swings (including the Silent King blowing up for a 12″ explosion, which I can only describe as a big RIP). After all the dust settled only one list remained triumphant – the Imperium’s All-Stars, created by Hellstorm Wargaming’s Tank Roberts and piloted through the bracket by Tank himself (twice), Mani Cheema and John Lennon.  Huge congratulations to Tank, and before we get into the GT results, we’re going to take another look at his list and talk about why it proved so successful on the day.

Next week we’ve got another GT on the radar in New Zealand, and hopefully we’ll be able to keep the ball rolling after that. Just like last year, if you’re running an event outside the US and UK in the next few months it’s incredibly useful if you can let me know via contact@goonhammer.com, as it helps me make sure we’ve got a full schedule. I currently have at least one event pencilled in per week through to the end of February, but the more the merrier. With that out the way, let’s take another look at the Las Vegas Nopen winning list!

Tank Roberts – The Imperium’s All-Stars – LVNo Winner

The List

++ Battalion Detachment  0CP (Imperium – Adepta Sororitas) [61 PL, 0CP, 1,108pts] ++

Order Convictions: Order: Bloody Rose

+ HQ [6 PL, -2CP, 95pts] +

Canoness [3 PL, 50pts]: Bolt pistol, Chainsword, Null Rod, Relic: Litanies of Faith, Warlord, Warlord Trait: 4. Beacon of Faith

Missionary [3PL, 45pts]

+ Troops [12 PL, 165pts] +
Battle Sister Squad [4 PL, 55pts]: 4x Battle Sister [44pts]: 4x Bolt pistol, 4x Boltgun, 4x Frag & Krak grenades, Sister Superior [11pts]: Bolt pistol, Boltgun, Chainsword

Battle Sister Squad [4 PL, 55pts]: 4x Battle Sister [44pts]: 4x Bolt pistol, 4x Boltgun, 4x Frag & Krak grenades, Sister Superior [11pts]: Bolt pistol, Boltgun, Chainsword

Battle Sister Squad [4 PL, 55pts]: 4x Battle Sister [44pts]: 4x Bolt pistol, 4x Boltgun, 4x Frag & Krak grenades, Sister Superior [11pts]: Bolt pistol, Boltgun, Chainsword

+ Elites [14 PL, 308pts] +
Death Cult Assassins [1 PL, 26pts]: 2x Death Cult Assassins [26pts]: 2x Death Cult power blades

Death Cult Assassins [1 PL, 26pts]: 2x Death Cult Assassins [26pts]: 2x Death Cult power blades

Sisters Repentia [6 PL, 128pts]: 8x Sisters Repentia [128pts]: 8x Penitent Eviscerator

Sisters Repentia [6 PL, 128pts]: 8x Sisters Repentia [128pts]: 8x Penitent Eviscerator

+ Heavy Support [21 PL, 380pts] +
Retributor Squad [7 PL, 130pts]: 2x Armourium Cherub [10pts], 2x Retributor [28pts]: 2x Bolt pistol, 2x Boltgun, 2x Frag & Krak grenades, Retributor Superior [14pts]: Bolt pistol, Combi-flamer [10pts]
. Retributor w/ Heavy Weapon [34pts]: Multi-melta [20pts]
. Retributor w/ Heavy Weapon [34pts]: Multi-melta [20pts]

Retributor Squad [7 PL, 130pts]: 2x Armourium Cherub [10pts], 2x Retributor [28pts]: 2x Bolt pistol, 2x Boltgun, 2x Frag & Krak grenades, Retributor Superior [14pts]: Bolt pistol, Combi-flamer [10pts]
. Retributor w/ Heavy Weapon [34pts]: Multi-melta [20pts]
. Retributor w/ Heavy Weapon [34pts]: Multi-melta [20pts]

Retributor Squad [7 PL, 120pts]: 2x Armourium Cherub [10pts], 2x Retributor [28pts]: 2x Bolt pistol, 2x Boltgun, 2x Frag & Krak grenades, Retributor Superior [14pts]: Bolt pistol, Bolter
. Retributor w/ Heavy Weapon [34pts]: Multi-melta [20pts]
. Retributor w/ Heavy Weapon [34pts]: Multi-melta [20pts]

+ Dedicated Transport [8 PL, 160pts] +
Sororitas Rhino [4 PL, 80pts]
Sororitas Rhino [4 PL, 80pts]

++ Patrol Detachment -2CP (Imperium – Adeptus Custodes) [41 PL, -5CP, 888pts] ++
Shield Host: Shadowkeepers

+ HQ [19 PL, -2CP, 368pts] +

Captain-General Trajann Valoris [10 PL, 190pts]

Shield-Captain on Dawneagle Jetbike [9 PL, -2CP, 178pts]: Auric Aquilas [-1CP], Captain-Commander [-1CP], Hurricane Bolter, Indomitable Constitution, Misericordia [3pts], Superior Creation, Ten Thousand Heroes [-1CP]

+ Troops [22 PL, 520pts] +

Custodian Guard Squad [11 PL, 260pts]: 5x Custodian [225pts]: Sentinel Blade [10pts], Storm Shield [25pts]

Custodian Guard Squad [11 PL, 260pts]: 5x Custodian [225pts]: Sentinel Blade [10pts], Storm Shield [25pts]

1996pts, 7CP

Why It Won The Event

As the ratings it received suggest, what this list is at heart is an incredibly good all-round build, and that backed up with a particularly strong secondary plan was enough to steer it through four rounds to glorious victory. On the way, it defeated Blood Angels, Necrons, Grey Knights (!) and Drukhari, which represents a hugely divergent range of challenges. Round after round, the plan of securing the mid-board with the Custodes, meeting the opposing charge dead on, then having the Sisters unleash hell while the Custodes either remained cautiously in place (or even retreated slightly) to maintain While We Stand We Fight points was successful, ending in a very well-deserved victory.

The While We Stand option felt like it was a big part of that. Essentially this list wants the opponent to try and take a swing at the Custodian Guard out the gate, because they’ll have to commit very strongly to have any chance of pulling it off, and when they do the extremely efficient damage dealing units of the Sororitas can sweep in and trade significantly up. Thanks to the powerful defensive options out of Custodes (notably The Emperor’s Auspice), those initial attempts to kill the Guard basically never seemed to go that well, meaning the list was usually able to navigate through with a good score on WWSWF, and also often tilting the scoring in its direction thanks to the ObSec the Guard possess. This setup is also why Trajann is so powerful in the list, despite not having that many units to act as a force multiplier for. He’s pricy enough that he pips the Bike Captain (who wants to play much less cautiously) to taking the third WWSWF slot, and combined with essentially packing a free use of Auspice via his Moment Shackle and just being another super-durable ObSec model, he brings vastly more to the table than it might appear.

The other side of the success is, of course, down to just how incredible Sisters two big damage dealers (Retributors and Repentia) are. Both caught nerfs in the January FAQ yet are still comfortably among the best units in the game, and are making Sisters/Other Imperium soup a growing archetype that this is one of the strongest examples of. Especially when the rest of the army so effectively blunts the impact of an alpha strike, the amount of damage these can deal if unleashed is going to instantly gut the effectiveness of a lot of lists, and ensures that even the slightest stumble from an opponent is going to be heavily capitalised on. With the faction being able to round out with cheap troops, cheap Action units and cheap transports for board control, they’re fantastic whenever they take to the table, and seeing them help take the crown seems only fitting as a representative of the metagame.

This list is a great example of how to build for 9th, and also in many ways an indication of how healthy some of the listbuilding incentives are. This list didn’t win the event because it put down some weird skew build that no one could interact with – it won because it’s a balanced build with a proactive game plan that can adapt to whatever it’s up against. Congratulations once more to Tank, and more of this sort of thing!

Hobart GT

All the lists from this event can be found on BCP.

Lance Glover – Space Wolves – 1st Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

The Standout Features

• Long Fangs and ThunderCav provide a brutal one-two punch.
• Phobos Librarian takes advantage of being able to start up the board to get the Wulfen Stone and defensive strats into position.
• Smaller utility units round out board control and objective play.

Why it’s Interesting in 9th

Let’s talk about Long Fangs – y’all have been sleeping on Long Fangs. Well, y’all minus Lance, who very much hasn’t been and has racked up an event win for his troubles. In every Chapter with good support for them Devastators have been performing well, and as of 9th Long Fangs are literally just better Devastators, able to use the full array of weapons and also having access to some nifty customisations that other Chapters lack. Those aren’t in play here – but what will be is the excellent strat support from Keen Senses and the ability to drop the double grav pod into a Storm Caller/Cloaked By the Storm bubble laid down by the Phobos Librarian. That makes them extra durable and a big headache to shift without some high AP shooting, and means they’re likely to perform well in a gunfight as long as there’s some melee units to keep them safe.

I am pleased to report that there are, in fact, melee units to keep them safe. Three ThunderCav units more than meets that descriptor, and with the standard-issue Hunter/Armour of Russ Bike Chaplain leading them about they’re going to quickly become a big headache for any opponent who can’t blast them at range, which is no mean feat since they can benefit from those Librarian bubbles as they stage mid-board too. It’s also worth noting the choice to stick a Frost Weapon on one of the Pack Leader lightning claws, which as anyone who had the dubious pleasure of going up against White Scars in the late game can attest, makes a big difference to damage output. They’re backed up by a utility troubleshooting squad of Wolf Guard, who are extremely flexible killers thanks to being able to be dropped into Assault Doctrine and given Savage Strike on the cheap. It’s easy to look at the small unit and underestimate them, but these guys will punch substantially above the weight of a similar unit in many chapters, so opponents need to be very wary.

Things are rounded out by a couple of troop units and a lone Cyberwolf. Obviously these are for objective play/board control – the Incursors can make a play for an objective early if needed, but I suspect a lot of the time one unit starts at home and the other goes outflanking with Cunning of the Wolf to set up reliable scramblers. The Cyberwolf can either do cheeky things around Engage on All Fronts or just sit and screen out enemy reserves (something that’s more than worth 15pts). Dogs love to sit. Famous for it.

Ultimately, all you have to do is look back at Tank’s list and it’s clear why this build is so strong – powerful, durable melee units with spike shooting backup is an LVNo winning recipe. My only slight surprise here was the choice not to buy Rites of War for the Wolf Lord – I wouldn’t want to go much lower on CP, but I feel like I might value that over the Armour Indomitus because of how much it forces the opponent to engage with the ThunderCav. Clearly, however, that didn’t hold Lance back at all – congratulations on the win.

Mariusz Rybak – Raven Guard Successors – 2nd Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

The Standout Features

• Oh no, they back.
• Centurions demonstrate that rumours of their demise may have been exaggerated. Pictures of the box art are being re-affixed to dartboards at GW HQ even as we speak.
• Another Phobos Libby lines up sneaky tricks with Master of Ambush.
• Attack bikes show off their growing utility as space fillers.

Why it’s Interesting in 9th

Sometimes, one looks at a top list and discreetly checks back what one might hypothetically have written in a strategy article a few months back to see if you were massively off-base. Mercifully, on taking a cold hard look at the Centurion statline when putting together SC: Raven Guard our opinion was that their complete vanishing post codex was probably an overcorrection, and they’d be back in concert with Hungry For Battle at some point. So it has proven.

Centurions are really, really nasty. No, they aren’t CORE, but they still get full benefit from the Chapter Tactic (and exploding 6s are especially good here), still get all the benefits of the Chief Apothecary and win big from the Strike from the Shadows and Raven’s Blade strats. Being able to come in, unleash a volley from their 12″ flamers then swing for a re-rollable 8″ charge is very reasonable, and they’re tough enough that if they don’t manage to charge straight away your opponent has to put a real commitment into killing them.  All of that comes at a price that’s stayed pretty competitive – and importantly low enough that this the list can pack some other threats, but high enough that if you want to bully a melee opponent by making all three squads WWSWF targets, youc an. Backing them up, a flamestorm Aggressor bomb is a very scary thing to be able to Master of Ambush, and is likely to force your opponent to deploy much more cautiously than they might like, helping ensure you don’t get overrun before the Centurions can take up positions. If those aren’t right for the job, a unit of VanVets that can move extremely quickly when needed thanks to Veil of Time and Strike from the Skies creates yet more headaches. Finally, threat wise, you have a vicious Swift and Deadly smash Chaplain, who can spend his time pulling sick wheelies around the board and knocking people’s heads off with the Benediction of Fury. The Raven Guard Doctrine makes him a particularly dangerous hunter of enemy characters even on top of his normal all-round goodness, making him very attractive here.

Rounding things out, the list eats it’s vegetables by packing some troop options and a couple of Attack Bikes. Troops are troops – no particular surprises here, but the Attack Bikes are worth a mention, as a couple of these as space-control models are an increasingly popular choice in Marine builds. One in each of your back corners zones out a lot of space very effectively, and with multi-meltas as they have here, they’ve got a pretty decent chance of randomly making their points back at some point by shooting out a single plasmaceptor or whatever. Is it weird that one of the most important Marine kits right now is old enough to drink? Absolutely, but if you like drinking the tears of your enemies, you still need some. Aw yeah. Nailed that.

Anyway, good job Mariusz for bringing The Fear back for a lot of people.

Charlie Williams – Space Wolves – 3rd Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

The Standout Features

• A completely different Space Wolf build goes hard on Redemptors and a Leviathan.
• Hunter Chaplain aims to switch on his Advance/Charge aura and get the Dreadnoughts into the fray.
• Heavy contingent of infiltrating Marine units buys time for the big boys to get to the battle.
• A single large ThunderCav unit provides backup for the Chaplain and a mobile response force.

Why it’s Interesting in 9th

it’s a good week for the Space Wolves, as not only have two lists placed, they make use of some quite different tools. One big ThunderCav unit is still here, but after that this list goes in a very different direction to Lance’s, featuring a bunch of Infiltrators and four especially large Sons of Russ. Three Redemptors and a Leviathan is an intensely scary setup to play against, and having pieced together what the synergies are here, I’m honestly pretty into it! Essentially, it would appear that the goal for this list is to have the Chaplain and ThunderCav retinue slam into something pretty early on, which switches on the Hunter aura from the Chaplain. He can then zip to wherever the Redemptors are lumbering up the board and suddenly they all get to Advance and Charge, putting on a burst of speed to slam into the opponent.

While they’re on the way up the table, the Storm Caller/Cloaked by the Storm combo, here further enhanced by Psychic Fortress (via Tome of Malcador) makes them exceptionally resilient (especially the Leviathan, who gets a cool 1+ save with Storm Caller up), meaning they’ll likely arrive in pretty good condition. The final piece of the puzzle is the trio of Infiltrators squads – this allows the list to commit pretty heavily to the mid board out the gate, giving it ways to fight for board control while it’s somewhat more ponderous alpha threats arrive. Once they do, opponents are going to have a rough time, as they’ll need to navigate around the possiblility of a 6″ Counter Charge heroic from the Redemptors and the lurking threat of the souped up Smash Captain of death who’ll be lurking around with them.

Some Intercessors and a small Bladeguard unit (which I suspect goes into Outflank pretty often) round things out. Pretty much the only issue I have with this list is that it does end up a little light on dedicated objective pieces, but it has some decent proactive secondary plans in Domination, Warrior Pride and WWSWF, so it matters a bit less. It’s definitely a terrifying build to contemplate facing down, and excellent work from Charlie to navigate it to third place.

Henry Crosswell – Adepta Sororitas – 4th Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

The Standout Features

• Sisters doing Sisters things.
• Large Battle Sister and Retributor squad(s) aim to maximise the challenge of chewing through their AP-resilient defences.
• Mortifiers provide nightmare roving murder blobs.
• MSU Zephyrim and Seraphim provide objective play or a little extra damage push as needed.

Why it’s Interesting in 9th

We’re going to end with a pretty short writeup here because, more than almost any other faction right now, I’m kind of running out of things to say about Sisters lists other than “they’re good”. Many builds make some tweaks and innovations that set them aside from others and this one is no different. Eschewing multiple Retributor squads is pretty uncommon, but taking one unit that’s bulked out with extra bodies makes them much easier to defend using extra miracles from the Triumph, and adding a MM to each big Battle Sister unit gives you some more hard-to-reach shots. MSU Zephyrim isn’t really something we’ve seen, but now they’re a bit cheaper their ability to come in and bully other melee units is pretty cool. Repentia outside Bloody Rose are much less common, but packing a preacher here still gets them to be deadly enough to do what they need to do, and this list almost certainly takes The Passion to help them out further. Mortifiers show that they’re plenty strong whether you take a small, medium or large number of them.

It’s all good stuff. It’s all good stuff in a new and successful configuration, so well done to Henry, but I can’t pretend I’m not looking forward to whenever the rules for the Nundam Wing lands so I’ve got some new Sisters toys to write about!

The Rest of the Best

Two more players finished the event on 4-1 records. They were:

• 5th Place – Liam Hogwood – Adepta Sororitas: A Bloody Rose list sporting some of the normal favourites but also a bold new play – Immolators. Three of the things, to be precise, sporting twin multi-meltas and carrying 6-model Repentia squads into battle. I’ve been wondering for a while if the bolter or melta Immolator builds were worth another look post-wargear changes, and it looks like there’s at least something there!
• 6th Place – Doug Hall – Death Guard: An early sighting of a new Death Guard list in the wild sporting some of the expected tools (both flavours of Terminators, Mortarion, Tallyman, a big Plague Marine blob) but with the unexpected twist of running as The Wretched to buy some extra oomph for a Plaguecaster via Sevenfold Blessings. A decent number of poxmongers round things out, and this looks like a strong early configuration.

Wrap Up

That’s it for today’s exciting, wolf-themed episode. Join us next week as we head over to New Zealand for the Over the Top GT, where amongst other things a mighty four different Death Guard builds are going to be reaching their sticky, sticky hands towards the trophy. If you have any comments, questions or suggestions  give us a shout at contact@goonhammer.com, otherwise we’ll see you then.