March marches on, with truly spectacular quantities of Warhammer continuing to happen around the world. My increasingly regular partner-in-crime Lowest of Men has once more stepped up to help, and will be taking the lead on Friday while I kick off today.

Part 1 is going to cover:

Iberian Open Talavera (major)
CentAR Presents: The March Madness Grand Tournament
Free State GT 2023
Dropzone Games Central Island Open
Pergőtűz LCOTSV 3 (coming to us from Hungary, which might be a first for the column?)
Carnage – Season 1 – Round 1 – A War Awakens
Kelpie Crusade GT 2023

Part 2 will be reviewing:

Battle Ready Wargaming’s Major Mayhem 40k Event (major)
The Great Game GT
Battlefield Birmingham 20
OP’s 1st GT Smash
War Of The Roses 2023
Dazmaul Wargaming Tournament 2023

I am pleased to report that the Great Patron Uprising of ’23 has been quelled, and under the watchful eye of military-grade Gregbots, a sensible vote has been returned. This week we’ve got three Showdowns elected by the patrons, and one brought in as editor’s choice. These are:

World Eaters vs. Black Legion at Pergőtűz LCOTSV
Tzeentch Daemons vs. Tau at Carnage
Slaanesh Daemons vs. Black Templars at Battle Ready
Dark Angels vs. Tzeentch Daemons at Battlefield Birmingham

How’s the meta looking amidst all of this? The good news is that there’s plenty of different factions putting in strong performances, with even Chaos Space Marines pulling off an undefeated run this week. The bad news is that Dark Angels are wildly ahead of everyone else, with Daemons and Guard doing a lot to define the rest of the top meta. We shouldn’t be too far out from a Balance Dataslate, so hopefully the Unforgiven will shortly be paying for some of their crimes.

Iberian Open Talavera

84-player, 7-round Major in Pepino, CM España on March 17 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Terroxer El Rojo – Tzeentch – 1st Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Thousand Sons & Flamers

Final Round Matchup

94-55 Victory vs. Alvaro Enciso-Showa – Astra Militarum

Thoughts

Tzeentch moves in mysterious ways, and after dominating some portions of Nephilim, the Thousand Sons & Daemons combo has been fairly quiet – till now. This list uses the classic core of a big Terminator brick and lots of Rubricae for durability and ObSec, maximising the grindiness of the Rubrics via Flamers, and supports them with some cheap, fast Daemon units. These are very tricky to kill with shooting, and have the mobility to get into concealed positions at speed, baiting the opponent out into places where the flamers can do their work. For scarier targets, the list also packs the Orrery/VolCon combo, helping it punch through targets like Redemptors, which might otherwise chew through the various 2 and 3W bodies here overly fast.

Avalanches of Mortal Wounds should see to anything else, and this list has got some real stings in its tail, all told. That said, it must have taken some serious skill to navigate it past the flurry of guard lists that it faced towards the end of the event, as Kasrkin bombs and Plasma Russes are both pretty threatening (though at least the intercept stratagem can ward off the Barbicant unit). Congratulations to Terroxer.

Alvaro Enciso-Showa – Astra Militarum – 2nd Place

Kasrkin Recon-Trooper. Credit: Jack Hunter

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Born Soldiers Goodstuff

Thoughts

Speaking of that avalanche of guard – plenty of familiar Born Soldiers toys here, plus a Scion Patrol that provides both some extra objective grabbers and the ability to deploy the Finial wherever it’s needed on a go turn. The list also invests in some Rough Riders, giving it a bit of counter-punch once its screening Sentinels go down (which must have been doubly terrifying for the Thousand Sons, as they do not like the melta lances), and finishes up by including Sly Marbo, whose ability to snipe out enemy characters in Born Soldiers and pull a once-per-game movement stunt adds a bit of extra trickery to tip a close game in the Guard’s favour. Very spicy, and a well deserved second place.

Miguel Keko – Astra Militarum – 3rd Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Born Soldiers Goodstuff

Thoughts

“Traditional” Born Soldiers in third place, with the only notable mixup being the inclusion of a Dorn. I guess there’s a level on which, as long as you have the bodies to screen out the Kasrkin bomb from it (which this list probably does), having one of these can be a decent tool in the mirror – its big guns go through Russes, but T9 and being a single target that can switch on Ablative means that plasma Russes don’t do nearly as much back.If you’re worried about Kasrkin you can also just strat reserve it and go for big damage the turn it rolls in. Interesting thought, and well done to Miguel on third.

Borja FM – Dark Angels – 4th Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Mixed Dark Angels

Thoughts

Yeah uh…there are a lot of Dark Angels this week, and I’m not going to have that much to say about most of them. The interesting piece of tech to call out here is running the Infiltrators as a unit of ten (which can be Combat Squadded if needed) rather than two fives – that probably broadens the matchups you could go for Stubborn Defiance with them, as something like a Howling Banshee unit can pick up a five but will bounce from a ten. You do lose the Helix off the second unit if you Combat Squad them, but often one unit stays on a home objective anyway. No idea if this will catch on, but I am appallingly grateful to any Dark Angels player who tries something unusual right now for giving me content, so thanks and congratulations to Borja.

The Best of the Rest

There were 11 more players on 4-1 records. They were:

5th – Cuervo Marcos – Dark Angels: Deathwing-heavy Dark Angels with a few Speeders and Infiltrators to add flexibility and good play on Stubborn Defiance.
6th – Alejandro Mancuso Serrano – Blood Angels: Go-wide Blood Angels with lots of small Jump Pack units, Infiltrators and a pair of Helverins to add a bit of dakka.
7th – Salvador Prados Pérez – Dark Angels: Mixed Ravenwing/Deathwing with a Desolation Squad for some backfield shooting.
8th – Martin Obscuro – Chaos Knights: Vextrix with an Abominant and Desecrator.
9th – Jordy Quesada – Astra Militarum: Born Soldiers Goodstuff with Scion backup.
10th – Jonhy Segura Hispalis Imperium – Aeldari: Mixed Ulthwe/Harlequins with lots of Shroud Runners, some Twilight melee hammers and a big unit of D-Cannons.
11th – Alvaro Gerrera Velazquez – Astra Militarum: Born Soldiers Goodstuff with some Scions.
12th – Newman Newman – Votann: Ymyr with one Fort and lots of Hearthguard.
13th – Jordi Macià Dekkers – Orks: Deathskulls with Kill Rigs and lots of Stormboyz.
14th – Miguel Durá – Orks: Very similar, but with some Burna Boyz snuck in.
15th – Jaume Albiach – Astra Militarum: Born Soldiers with lots of indirect fire and a Banesword!

CentAR Presents: The March Madness Grand Tournament

48-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Jacksonville, AR US on March 18 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Brent Simon – Chaos Daemons – 1st Place

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

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Tzeentch Daemons

Final Round Matchup

97 – 75 Victory against Ethan Holt – Dark Angels.

Thoughts

I told you Tzeentch had plans – not only is the Thousand Sons/Daemons combo back winning a major, it’s also been a breakout weekend for pure Tzeentch Daemons, putting in several very strong performances. The big draw to this plan is the combination of extremely high mobility with unparalleled resistance to shooting, meaning that as long as you can take the opponent apart without getting pinned down in melee you’re laughing (or possibly cackling) as you rack up Reality Rebels and some sort of Psychic Action, then max Despoilers in the final stretch. There are plenty of armies out there right now which are ideal victims for this plan like Guard, Iron Hands and the more Ravenwing-heavy Dark Angels builds, but I have to admit I would have assumed that the Deathwing Dark Angels builds could pose a bit of a problem. Apparently even they can be overcome by the might of Tzeentch, and I guess the sheer amount of firepower the list puts out, plenty of it D3 and with Mortal Wounds on top, allows it to play keep away while grinding the Terminators down initially, then swing for the win late game. Well done to Brent for furthering Tzeentches great schemes.

The Best of the Rest

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

2nd (undefeated with a draw) – Craig Mills – Dark Angels: Whoops all Terminators.
3rd – Howard Watts – Ultramarines: Dakka-heavy Ultramarines with a core of Dreadnoughts and Invictors then lots of small shooting units, including 3×3 Eliminators to squeeze value from Bobby G.
4th – Peyton Preece – Genestealer Cults: Industrial Neophyte/Bike spam.
5th – Ethan Holt – Dark Angels: Whoops all Terminators.
6th – Brian Preece – Adeptus Custodes: Emperor’s Chosen with a mid-sized Warden brick.
7th – Randall Robinson – Adepta Sororitas: Valorous Heart with loads of Sacresants at the core, and big Retributor units plus Helverins to provide shooting.
8th – George Murray – Imperial Knights: Freeblade Lance with a big Herald Errant.

Free State GT 2023

43-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Holton, KS United States on March 18 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Dan Sammons – Dark Angels – 1st Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Deathwing & Infiltrators

Final Round Matchup

97 – 85 Victory against Ryan Verbeck – Genestealer Cult.

Thoughts

Dan’s contribution to the art of interesting choices is breaking up the pure First Company detachment, but only taking Infiltrators to unlock Stubborn rather than going deeper on Ravenwing stuff. That ensures the list retains maximum resilience when facing high threat armies, while combining with Ezekiel for the broadest possible suite of Secondary options. This has been “interesting choices in a Dark Angels list” with me, your host Wings. Well done Dan.

Colin Kay – Black Legion – 2nd Place (Undefeated)

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Black Legion Pressure

Thoughts

Pulling off an undefeated run with Chaos Space Marines is no mean feat in Arks, and I really like how Colin has gone about achieving that, which is by building a list that goes for the throat. Chaos Marines don’t have the numbers to play a value game against their Loyalist brethren or Guard at the moment, so I think it’s fully correct to not even try. Instead, this list takes the fastest possible Black Rune brick in the Bikers, and packs a full warpflamer Rubricae squad with the Veilbreaker Plate so that they can re-deploy into position and incinerate half an army with full wound re-rolls. Raptors can launch daring thrusts to shore up flanks, a Contemptor with the Mark of Tzeentch provides a backfield shooting unit that’s hard to spike out, and Characters and Cultists fill the roster out.

With this kind of list you’re certainly at the risk of losing hard if a game goes wrong, but by putting enormous pressure on the opponent and demanding they answer a high proportion of the list at once, you give yourself the best chance of managing to just body five opponents despite the faction being a bit on the weak side. Serious props to Colin for pulling it off!

The Best of the Rest

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

3rd – Ryan Verbeck – Genestealer Cult: Pauper Princes with lots of Bike/Neophyte bodies and small Acolyte units.
4th – Cory Schulz – Necrons: Very skewed Mephrit with loads of shooting from three Arks and some Deathmarks, The Silent King, and a goddamn Tesseract Vault.
5th – Aaron Hermstedt – Chaos Knights: Herpetrax Desecrator and Dogs.
6th – Scott Sasser – Grey Knights: Prescient Brethren Dreadknights and Interceptors.

Dropzone Games Central Island Open

39-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Nanaimo, BC CA on March 18 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Ryan Burns – Dark Angels – 1st Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Mixed Dark Angels

Final Round Matchup

73 – 71 Victory against Joseph Darbison – Adeptus Custodes.

Thoughts

Decisive Tactician as a way to avoid spending points on a Chaplain is pretty cute, I guess? There, that’s your interesting thing. Well done to Ryan on the win.

The Best of the Rest

There were 6 more players on 4-1 records. They were:

2nd – Brendan McKenzie – Adepta Sororitas: Valorous Heart going full crunch, packing 3×10 Sacresants and some Paragons.
3rd – Scott Darbison – Iron Hands: Actual Iron Hands with lots of Redemptors (including a fancy new Brutalis) and Invictors.
4th – Joseph Darbison – Adeptus Custodes: Emperor’s Chosen with big bike units.
5th – Travis Grant – Blood Angels: Go-wide jump packs with some Drop Devs in support.
6th – Patrick Owens – Tau: Tau Sept with two Riptides and a big Crisis unit.
7th – Nevin Windfield – Adeptus Custodes: MSU-heavy Emperor’s chosen with an honest to god Venerable Land Raider at the core.

Pergőtűz LCOTSV 3

34-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Jászfényszaru, HU on March 18 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings. Big thanks to the TO for sending me the event pack, it looks like they’re doing great work to build up the scene in Hungary!

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission – Abandoned Sanctuaries

Richárd Ivány – Black Legion: Abaddon with a big Terminator brick and Warp Talon support.
Army List - Click to Expand

vs.

Mate Csaszar – World Eaters: Invocatus and the boys.
Army List - Click to Expand

Thoughts

Abaddon shaking his head to make it clear that he disapproves of this sort of thing. Playing World Eaters on Abandoned Sanctuaries is a definite mixed blessing. The good news is that Invocatus’ pre-game move can’t push them right into your face turn one, meaning you’re essentially guaranteed a turn of breathing room to get set up. The bad news is that the already extremely strong World Eaters Secondaries are especially good here, as the mission naturally lends itself to a vicious brawl over the mid-board. You always need to take them off the table fast but here it needs to be at warpspeed if you want to prevent them from counting to 45 on Secondaries, and I am just not convinced that this Chaos Space Marine list can pull it off.

It’s certainly got some good tools for dealing with the World Eaters – the Death Hex/G’holl’ax murder Prince is going to force the Eightbound to be a bit more careful than they otherwise might, and is especially strong for hunting down the Exalted, who lean on their better save and can’t Fight on Death. Abaddon is also excellent going into what is effectively a one-phase army, and with plenty of Troops the Secondary Options for the Black Legion could certainly be worse. Repeatedly smashing the World Eaters off the central objective will get them a decent Primary score and most of The Long War, and sneaking Cultists into position might allow them to pull off most of Despoil Dominions. However, they’re short of a third great option (since the Eaters have plenty of CP to plow into trying to deny a Warpcraft one), and also run a big risk of just running out of stuff. What you really, desperately want in this game is a way to open up the Rhinos so that Khorne Berserkers can’t safely stage, but Abaddon’s minions are also leaning on doing most of their damage in the Fight Phase, and the World Eaters are just better at that. I feel like the tool the Black Legion are missing here to give them a shot is the Cloak of Conquest – if ObSec Abaddon could sit on the central objective to buy some eight point turns and stop the World Eaters flipping it in the mid game that might be a route to the Black Legion sneaking a win, but as is I basically think that they can’t prevent a 45pt Secondary score from the World Eaters, and will run out of stuff trying to restrict them to 4pt Primary turns. I’d guess that the scoreline here results from the Black Legion having a pretty decent VP score, but the World Eaters landing close to a 100VP finish.

Result

World Eaters Victory – 16 – 4

Mate Csaszar – World Eaters – 1st Place

The List

See showdown

Archetype

Invocatus Eightbound Spam

Thoughts

Go fast, score points, simple as. Subtlety is for cowards, and Khorne hates those. Well done Mate on riding the Eightfold Steps to victory.

The Best of the Rest

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

2nd (Undefeated with a draw) – Véber Ákos – Salamanders: Lots of flame Aggressors and a whole bunch of melta-toting friends.
3rd – Patrik Pintér – Daemons: The classic monster mash trio of the three Bs (Be’lakor, Bloodthirster, Big Bird) supported by the three Fs (Fiends, Flamers, Flesh Hounds), with I guess some Daemonettes ruining my naming scheme too.
4th – Rab Kristóf – World Eaters: Invocatus Eightbound spam with a bit of extra herohammer.

Carnage – Season 1 – Round 1 – A War Awakens

32-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in England United Kingdom on March 18 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission – Tear Down Their Icons

Jacob Whitehouse – T’au Empire: Bork’an with a big Crisis block and some Riptides
Army List - Click to Expand

vs.

Bethany Taylor – Chaos Daemons: A second showing for pure Tzeentch, taking out Be’lakor in favour of more board coverage.
Army List - Click to Expand

Thoughts

Sometimes the Patron vote makes me look at a game I might otherwise have passed on and find interesting depths. Sometimes it makes me write about Tau playing against army-wide 3+ Daemon Saves against shooting. This uh, this probably only ends one way, and if anything this version of Tzeentch Daemons is even worse for the Tau than the other build we saw thanks to there being multiple Screamer units to head out and grab stuff, and no Be’lakor as at least an OK Riptide target.

From the Tau’s ponit of view, I think your only shot is just to go full-on hyper aggro and hope that the save dice go in your favour and that you can force through enough Secondary points to somehow steal a win. Take BEL, Decisive Action with Mont’ka and I guess probably Relays, hope for the first turn, and then ram Riptides and Devilfish forward, while having Commanders hunt down Screamers and the Crisis Team gradually lock in relays while throwing out some grinding damage, and hope that the other three Dark Gods are annoyed enough at Tzeentch to hand you a cheeky win. Is it likely to work? Absolutely not, but trying to play a long game here is definitely not going to work, so you have to take the shot. I do like the Dominator Frag Launcher commander in the Tau build a lot in the current metagame, as it gives a real answer to lurking Kasrkin (and provides a small out for dealing with the Horror bricks here), but it looks like no amount of Tau ingenuity could overcome the Tzeentchian misdirections here.

Result

Chaos Daemons Victory – 97 – 42

Bethany Taylor – Chaos Daemons – 1st Place

The List

See Showdown

Archetype

Tzeentch Daemons

Thoughts

As covered in the showdown, pretty much the literal worst nightmare of a shooting list, and if armies like this keep performing I’d expect to see Guard start packing more Rough Riders/Bullgryn and Tau to double up on melee Commanders, just to provide some outs to flip key points. For now though, Tzeentch and Beth are one step ahead.

The Best of the Rest

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

2nd – Kyle Grundy – Tau: Farsight Triptide with a big Crisis unit on top.
3rd – Kieran French – Dark Angels: Lots of Deathwing backed with Talonmasters and Vengeances.
4th – Martin Lawson – Iron Hands Successors: Artisans/Whirlwind successors with a bit of a tilt towards speed, packing two Speeders full of Scouts, lots of VanVets and some Suppressors.
5th – Jacob Whitehouse – Tau: Bork’an with two Riptides, a massively tooled-up Crisis team and some Devilfish in support.

Kelpie Crusade GT 2023

32-player GT in Scotland. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Innes Wilson – Dark Angels – 1st Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Deathwing-heavy Dark Angels

Final Round Matchup

85-80 Victory vs Brian Seipp – Orks

Why it’s Interesting in 9th

I assume Innes has some excuse about needing to understand how to beat Dark Angels, and winning a GT is merely a happy side effect. His particular spin on the Deathwing-skewed version builds in as many toolbox elements as possible while still keeping the thirty Terminator core. It’s got Land Speeders to toss for Oaths if it goes second or BEL in some weird matchup that needs it, a cheap Inquisitorial Acolyte to put on a home objective if the opponent has no answer, or to put up a Banner, Ezekiel for Warp Ritual, Infiltrators for Defiance – really just every possible angle of Secondary attack, plus all the rampaging Terminators you could want. Classic Innes.

The Rest of the Best

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

2nd – Ryan Kerr – World Eaters: Invocatus Eightbound spam.
3rd – Brian Seipp – Orks: Goff horde pressure.
4th – Nicholas Malone – Iron Hands Successors: Classic Artisans/Whirlwind Successors with lots of Dreadnoughts, drop Devs and the more modern option of tooled-up Scouts.
5th – Conar Leach – Tau: I am reliably informed that Conar was the ringer, and the list in BCP is an elaborate bit. No idea what sort of Tau.
6th – Fraser McFetridge – Chaos Daemons: Full-on Disciples of Be’lakor, with loads of the three Fs and some Beasts and Nurglings to boot.

Wrap Up

We’ve got a bumper-sized part 2 still to come this week, and another huge weekend with supermajors in both the US and UK, which will hopefully provide final inputs to whatever Dataslate is currently being cooked up. Check in on Friday and next week, and if you’re playing at one of the big events on the weekend, best of luck!

Competitive Innovations in 9th: March Multitudes pt.1

Iberian Open Talavera

Terroxer El Rojo – Tzeentch – 1st Place

The List

Archetype

Final Round Matchup

Thoughts

Alvaro Enciso-Showa – Astra Militarum – 2nd Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

Miguel Keko – Astra Militarum – 3rd Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

Borja FM – Dark Angels – 4th Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

The Best of the Rest

CentAR Presents: The March Madness Grand Tournament

Brent Simon – Chaos Daemons – 1st Place

The List

Archetype

Final Round Matchup

Thoughts

The Best of the Rest

Free State GT 2023

Dan Sammons – Dark Angels – 1st Place

The List

Archetype

Final Round Matchup

Thoughts

Colin Kay – Black Legion – 2nd Place (Undefeated)

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

The Best of the Rest

Dropzone Games Central Island Open

Ryan Burns – Dark Angels – 1st Place

The List

Archetype

Final Round Matchup

Thoughts

The Best of the Rest

Pergőtűz LCOTSV 3

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission – Abandoned Sanctuaries

Thoughts

Result

Mate Csaszar – World Eaters – 1st Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

The Best of the Rest

Carnage – Season 1 – Round 1 – A War Awakens

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission – Tear Down Their Icons

Thoughts

Result

Bethany Taylor – Chaos Daemons – 1st Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

The Best of the Rest

Kelpie Crusade GT 2023

Innes Wilson – Dark Angels – 1st Place

The List

Archetype

Final Round Matchup

Why it’s Interesting in 9th

The Rest of the Best

Wrap Up

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