A massive week of 40K rolls onwards, and Lowest of Men is taking the wheel for part two of our coverage. Today we’ll be looking at:

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
(bonus) Energy City Open

Part 1 covered:

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

Onwards!

Battle Ready Wargaming’s Major Mayhem 40k Event

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

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission – The Scouring

John Lennon – Slaanesh Daemons: Mass Daemonettes and Fiends with Warp Locus shenanigans.
Army List - Click to Expand

vs.

Seth Piper – Black Templars: Helbrecht and the gang living it up with Redemptors
Army List - Click to Expand

Thoughts

Turns out the Boy King was a Dark Prince in disguise! Our first showdown today pits the honest, combat brawling potential of the Black Templars against a truly horrifying pure Slaanesh build. Daemons players have been demonstrating the validity of a wide range of themes and combinations in recent weeks, and John Lennon makes good on his recent promises to demonstrate the power of pure Slaanesh by throwing down an absolute horde of infantry, beasts, and even some cavalry, eschewing the Greater Daemons in favour of board presence, mission play, and weight of attacks.

What does this Slaanesh list do? Well, it sings you a nice lullaby and then jumps at you from every conceivable angle, slashing at your soft parts with a devastating number of mid and high ap attacks, just as it damn well should. There is some astute tech here to enable it to stick around and get things where they are needed, with the double Infernal Enrapturess’s providing two cheap, nimble sources of Warp Locus delivery, and the ability to regenerate core units (amazing on a brick of Fiends). If you don’t finish off Slaanesh units here they will sure as hell be coming back, and the command phase regrowth can help to body the primary too. In terms of output this list can slap Rapturous Standard on the icon wielding Daemonettes or the Seekers (LOVE seeing these out), to give full rerolls to hit alongside the wound rerolls available elsewhere from the supporting HQs. Massive combat efficiency, and a huge number of units on which to combo it over and over across a game. pile in and consolidate jank via The Endless Dance means even one of these units making the enemy lines can tie up and tag gunlines with ease. Glorious.

Facing off on the other side of the board the Black Templars are built for shooting and fighting, with triple Redemptors (that little bit more durable thanks to Uphold the Honour of the Emperor), some useful fight last via a Judiciar, and some heavy hitting characters in Grimaldus and Helbrecht. These are accompanied by a sneaky tech piece in the Culexus Assassin, well placed to run interference on enemy psychic schemes in the midst of the ruckus. With further relic fuelled resilience from the Icon of Heinmann on the Bladeguard squad (what if Armour of Contempt but, well, more!), it’s a well balanced, thematic build that can punch, shoot, and abhor witches the way that our lord and saviour the Emperor intended.

In this match up the close confines of the Scouring means blood will be flowing good and early. The speed and delivery flexibility of the Slaanesh forces makes it fairly unlikely they will be in the open taking fire until they’re ready to close on the Templars en masse and drown them in claws and tickles, and it looks like sheer weight of bodies and attacks probably carried the day here for the forces of Chaos.

Result

Slaanesh Daemons Victory – 100 – 76

John Lennon – Slaanesh Daemons – 1st Place

Thoughts

Alright then Noah you absolute hero, let’s talk about Death Guard! This list comes armed to the teeth with ob sec combat bodies, ready to boss the primary and spread blessings for the grandfather. Big stacks of Plague Marines offer excellent combat output and some supporting shooting, Plagueburst Crawlers troubleshoot hard targets and sneaky hidden units from a distance, and a loaded up brick of Blightlord Terminators can march centrally and assert board presence, buffed up by the Tallyman and the Biologus Putrifier to amp up the shooting and combat threat respectively. The Ferrymen plague company offer some nice tech for disrupting enemy movement and combat via The Droning contagion, and the ability to bolster an aura (typically the Foul Blightspawn) through their On Droning Wings stratagem. This list is a wall of decay and despair coming at you with all the inevitability of old age, and I couldn’t be more here for a Death Guard list doing well after a quiet / difficult time for the army in the latter half of 9th. Great stuff Noah!

The Best of the Rest

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

5th – Mark Perry – World Eaters: MSU World Eaters with the Lord Invocatus, two Daemon Princes, a truckload of Eightbound and two big bricks of Chaos Spawn
6th – Walter Langendorf – Necrons: Big bricks of Skorpekh, Wraiths, and Tomb Blades amped up with a combination of pre-game move and +1 to charge.
7th – Collin Watts – Chaos Daemons: Be’lakor and the ‘Thirster bring a KoS friend with the usual suspects in Flamers, Fiends, and Flesh Hounds.
8th – Daniel Hesters – Dark Angels: A mixed Dark Angels list that packs in a big slab of Centurion Devastators alongside the more usual speeders and Terminators.
9th – Kyle Jackling – Leagues of Votann: Great Thurian League with Uthar, some Hearthguard, Beserks and a solitary Land Fortress backing up a big stack of Pioneers.
10th – Jason Watts – Chaos Daemons: Be’lakor and the two big angry Khorne favourites in Skarbrand and a ‘Thirster, with the usual supporting units.

The Great Game GT

51-player, 6-round Grand Tournament in Westminster, MD US on March 18 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Daniel Moscato – Tzeentch Daemons – 1st Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Tzeentch Shooty Daemons

Final Round Matchup

83 – 48 Victory against Matt Lorah – Ulthwe.

Thoughts

Daniel has taken the ‘Great Game’ event title very seriously and won it for Tzeentch, with an excellent list that packs in ranged damage behind durable 3++ saves. A couple of Tzeentch Soul Grinders add greater durability and some counter punch to the backfield, as the current favourites in Flamers and Screamers throw out damage and tick off secondary scoring. Tzeentch offers psychic dominance, no-sells ranged opposition, and can punish the unwary with movement and teleport shenanigans. Great work!

The Best of the Rest

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

2nd – Matt Lorah – Aldaeri: Aspect Warrior and Phoenix Lord heavy Ulthwe built to maximise Wrath of Khaine, with Harlequins support.
3rd – Ken Knox – Iron Hands: An absolute truckload of Vanguard Veterans with Devastator and Infiltrator support.
4th – Tiger O’Daniel – Leagues of Votann: Ymyr goodstuff with a ‘Grudge’s End’ punch-Kahl, love to see it.
5th – Rayner Artiles Rodriguez – World Eaters: Angron leads a tonne of Eightbound, Bezerkers and Chaos Spawn to the slaughter.

Battlefield Birmingham 20

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

Note: The showdown features the player who ended up in second, as this was the table where both players were undefeated going into round 5.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission – Recover the Relics

Paul James – Dark Angels: Terminator Spam

Army List - Click to Expand

vs.

Jonathan Talbot – Tzeentch Daemons: Go wide shooting and psychic daemons

++ Arks of Omen Detachment (Chaos – Daemons) [101 PL, 2,000pts, 4CP] ++

+ Configuration +

Arks of Omen Compulsory Type: Elites

Chaos Allegiance: Tzeentch

+ HQ +

Changecaster [4 PL, 80pts]: Bolt of Change, Infernal Gateway, Ritual dagger

Daemon Prince of Chaos [9 PL, 185pts, -1CP]: Hellforged sword, Infernal Flames, Infernal Gateway, Stratagem: Relic, Warpfire Blade, Wings
. Tzeentch

Fateskimmer [7 PL, 160pts, -1CP]: Fractal Mind, Gaze of Fate, Infernal Gateway, Retinue of Horrors, Staff of change, Stratagem: Warlord Trait, Warlord

+ Troops +

Blue Horrors [3 PL, 70pts]
. 10x Blue Horror: 10x Coruscating flames

Pink Horrors [7 PL, 140pts]: Daemonic icon, Instrument of Chaos
. 9x Pink Horror: 9x Coruscating flames

+ Elites +

Exalted Flamer [4 PL, 75pts]

Flamers [6 PL, 150pts]: Pyrocaster
. 5x Flamer: 5x Flickering flames

Flamers [6 PL, 125pts]: Pyrocaster
. 4x Flamer: 4x Flickering flames

+ Fast Attack +

Screamers [8 PL, 125pts]
. 5x Screamer: 5x Lamprey bite

+ Heavy Support +

Burning Chariot [6 PL, 125pts]: Horror Infestation

++ Total: [101 PL, 4CP, 2,000pts] ++

Thoughts

This event took the unusual option of random pairings all the way to the very end which meant the two top lists didn’t play each other in the final game. As such I’ve exercised a small degree of personal bias to focus in on this horrifying Deathwing Terminator list, piloted by all round bad bloke and definitely not my friend Paul James. Facing off against the 1st Company is a Tzeentch anti-ranged build very much in the mould of the ones we’ve been seeing making the rounds lately. The match up took place on Recover the Relics – in theory this is a mission where both sides can play quite passively and still score very well, but the nature of the two armies in play here ensured that this is very much not how things went.

Jonathan’s Tzeentch list has mobility, mortal wounds, and shooting for days via Screamers, Psykers and Flamers. It can score well and cover the board and the 3+++ Daemon save frustrates an awful lot of the gunline armies currently dominating the meta. Packing Infernal Gateway onto all the characters highlights Jonathan’s thinking here – use the wide array of MSU units to outfox and harass the opponent, throwing out AoE mortals where necessary to break down hard targets. As with Lennon’s Slaanesh list this build also drops the big monsters in favour of spreading the threats as wide as it can, and I think this is probably the future for Daemons at this moment in time.

Into a more mixed arms Dark Angels list this Tzeentch concoction might work pretty well, but unfortunately the Daemons are going up against a certain line unbreakable this week! Paul’s build hammers home the cost efficiency of Deathwing Terminators by packing them in en masse, with as many supporting characters as they could ever dream of having to add resilience, damage, psychic potential and resurrection shenanigans.

The latter is a big problem for the Daemons, who will need to get danger close to do their very best damage. As soon as this happens, I can say from experience, Dark Angels Terminator squads are going to start bringing back bodies, making up incredible distances via charging and pile-in / consolidate buffs, and chewing up the objectives with durable ob sec that can hold it’s own in a fight. Terminator squads dropping in from reserves for Chaplain boosted delivery can compound this problem, and Paul’s list has ample resources to spare ten or so Deathwing for this purpose. As such the Daemons will often find themselves choked out on the primary and bodied off the board, which is how this one looks to have played out.

Result

Dark Angels Victory – 100 – 65

Luke Richards – Astra Militarum – 1st Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Born Soldiers Goodstuff

Final Round Matchup

100 – 15 Victory against Kieran Kennett – Orks.

Thoughts

The ultimate winner of the event stormed home with a devastating 100-15 win to seal first place! Luke’s list packs in a great many of the tools that are working so well for the guard as this moment in time. Mortars and Kasrkin amped up by the Finial, or jumped into enemy lines with the Barbicant’s Key can all project threat and bypass enemy defences.

Sentinels of varying flavours hold the line and slow down or tie up the enemy ahead of them, and there are some flex picks in the Rogal Dorn (capable of throwing out an awful lot of high quality shots), and multiple chewy Command Squads. A sneaky little Combat Engineer Squad can provide cheap RBD go-getters or punk a loosely defended backfield objective. All in all it’s a very well designed list and romped to a deserved first place finish. Great work Luke!

Paul James – Dark Angels – 2nd Place (Undefeated)

Deathwing Terminator Praetor. Credit: Jack Hunter

The List

See Showdown

Archetype

Dark Angels Terminator Spam

Thoughts

Paul has been running a wall of Deathwing doom for many years now, and it’s finally seeing some top place rewards off the back of the recent improvements to the faction in Arks. The key to making this build sing is squeezing every inch of movement and positioning magic out of the otherwise slow moving squads, via canny use of ‘slingshotted’ charges (DO NOT, I repeat DO NOT put a cheap unit in his lines to score Behind Enemy Lines turn one), and the movement boosting prayers of the Chaplain.

Careful application of the Pennant of Remembrance, and full rerolls to hit and wound via Ezekiel guarantee that at least one of those Terminator bricks is going to smash things up and absorb tremendous damage doing it. I utterly despise this list, but it is a thing of horrifying beauty watching the potential it has maximised. Well done Paul, can’t wait to play you again in 10th when it’s finally safe (I hope).

The Best of the Rest

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

3rd – Adam Lynch – Custodes: MSU Shadowkeepers Infantry.
4th – Erwin Buckel – Dark Angels: Mani Cheema style Dark Angels with Terminators, Attack Bikes, and Talonmasters
5th – Peter Bunce – Astra Militarum: Born Soldiers Goodstuff.
6th – Kevin Davies – Tyranids: Leviathan monsters with a Carnifex spine and lots of tech piece mission play in Lictors and the Parasite. GREAT showing with this Kevin.
7th – Jonathan Talbot – Chaos Daemons: The Tzeentch threat saturation list from the showdown.

Team arKCanite Presents: Planet arKCanite At Comicon 2023

40-player, 6-round Grand Tournament in Kansas City, Missouri US on March 18 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Tedd Williamson – Necrons – 1st Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Nihilak C’tan and Infantry

Final Round Matchup

89 – 65 Victory against Anthony Joyce-Rivera – Deathwing.

Thoughts

The Necrons may not be free of their shiny metal bodies anytime soon, but at least in Arks they are finally free of having to take a bunch of dreadful troop choices. This Nihilak build from Ted leans hard into elites and fast attack, where many of the best Necron datasheets can be found, with tonnes of bodies for the primary in the form of Scarabs, cutting edge and trading pieces in the Ophidian Destroyers, and the mortal wound sprinkler-system that only multiple C’tan can provide. These obviously do have some predators at the moment (a tiny gang of human no-hopers with a fancy flag laugh in the face of star gods, as it turns out), but they open up angles of attack and passive sniping damage for the Necrons that they simply can’t access without them.

The Hexmark Destroyer with Gauntlet of the Conflagrator is worth drawing attention to. For only 65 points you get a sneaky little so and so who can counter deploy and shoot up a deep striking enemy unit. It ruins enemy efforts to score RBD and every now and again it absolutely totals a squad of Neophytes too! Lovely tech for the current game with so many fragile but high damage dealing units jumping around the board, and incredible value for its points in the Arks meta. Great work Ted!

The Best of the Rest

There were 3 more players on 5-1 records. They were:

2nd – James Willet – Astra Militarum: Born Soldiers Goodstuff with a patrol of Scions for mission play and reach.
3rd – Calvin Smith – World Eaters: Lord Invocatus rush World Eaters with a single accompanying War Dog.
4th – Anthony Joyce-Rivera – Dark Angels: Deathwing Terminator spam. That is some spicy list configuration you’ve got there Anthony…

OP’s 1st GT Smash

38-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Santa Rosa, CA US on March 18 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Jake Nelson – Iron Hands Successors – 1st Place

Rainbow Warriors Relic Contemptor with Volkite Culverins by Craig “MasterSlowPoke” Sniffen

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Iron Hands Goodstuff

Final Round Matchup

100 – 60 Victory against Forrest Phanton – Space Wolves.

Thoughts

A very punchy and fairly archetypal Iron Hands list. You know what it does, stopping it is something else entirely. The Vox Espiritum ensures that rerolls and ob sec get where they are needed more readily, and all the right shooting and combat tools are in place to sweep the enemy off the board and scoring handsomely as you do so. Excellent work taking home first Jake!

Scott Toebe – Death Guard – 2nd Place (Undefeated)

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Inexorable Mixed Arms

Thoughts

An absolutely delicious Death Guard build that reaches out a decaying hand and dials the clock right on back by going hard on Deathshroud and Mower Drones. The seldom-seen Plague Surgeon comes along for the ride to hand out a feel no pain and double Plaguecasters lay down debuffs and damage (the Plague Skull of Glothila still gives me nightmares). Nicely done going undefeated Scott! Maybe the unexpected Death Guard resurgence is a nod to the resetting of the cycle of decay and regrowth that our favourite game is fast approaching…

The Best of the Rest

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

3rd – Forrest Phanton – Space Wolves Successors: Whirlwind/Heroes packing in loads of tooled-up Skyclaws and melta jump pack Wolfguard, plus lots of Wulfen.
4th – Daniel Velazquez – Adeptus Custodes: Solar Watch with a cool thousand points spent on two full Warden blocks.
5th – Eulis Sanders – Necrons: Flayed One spam horde Novokh that also makes history by being the first list to make X-1 with a Convergence of Dominion.
6th – Adam Dye – Chaos Daemons: Khorne heavy hitters (Skarbrand, Bloodthirster, a big Bloodcrusher unit) and lots of speedy support.

War Of The Roses 2023

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

Mani Cheema – Dark Angels – 1st Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Dark Angels Manistuff

Final Round Matchup

13 – 7 Victory against Josh Roberts – Adeptus Custodes.

Thoughts

Mani’s hyper fine-tuned Dark Angels build takes more names in the name of the Lion. There’s tech here to shrug off mortal wounds in Lazarus, and the attack bikes ensure the Apothecary buffs and resurrect goes further than in the pure speeder lists. Keep on slaying Mani, and well done on taking down a certain Mr Roberts in the final!

The Best of the Rest

There were 2 more players on 4-1 records. They were:

2nd – Matt Robertson – World Eaters: Robbo lets his hair down with a balls to the wall Angron centric World Eaters list. This looks a blast to play!
3rd Michael Armer – Custodes: Shadowkeepers MSU with a fair few Sagittarum. The connoisseur’s choice.

Energy City Open

26-player event in Estevan, Canada. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Wings is picking up this one as a late-entry bonus, because it only missed GT threshold thanks to Gunum’s car being unable to make it due to snow, so he asked very nicely if it could be included anyway!

Drew Ward – Space Wolves Successors – 1st Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Space Wolves aggro

Final Round Matchup

97-51 Victory against Chris Hunter – Chaos Knights

Why it’s Interesting in 9th

Proper wolfing here – none of this “strap a meltagun to every arm” nonsense, just loads of Thundercav and Wulfen to rip people to shreds in melee. That genuinely feels pretty well tuned to the metagame – this army has lots of fast units that are a genuine threat to even Deathwing bricks, is super scary to Daemons as well, and can brawl like crazy with plenty of the horde melee lists. Very fun stuff, and a well deserved win for Drew.

The Rest of the Best

2nd – Frasier Parry – World Eaters: Invocatus Eightbound spam with a particularly large number of Khorne Berserkers alongside.
3rd – Cyle Thompson – Black Templars: Gladiator/Impulsor hull skew, with Sword Brethren as cheap, deadly passengers.
4th – Morgan Smerek – Ultramarines: Bobby G with a mighty three VolCons and plenty of Infiltrators to screen them.

Wrap Up

A mammoth week closes, and another explosive one beckons. After the Adepticon reveals we now know that 9th’s days are numbered, but it’s definitely going down swinging. See you next week!

Competitive Innovations in 9th: March Multitudes pt.2

Battle Ready Wargaming’s Major Mayhem 40k Event

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission – The Scouring

Thoughts

Result

John Lennon – Slaanesh Daemons – 1st Place

The List

Archetype

Final Round Matchup

Thoughts

Jack Harpster – Adeptus Custodes – 2nd Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

Seth Piper – Black Templars – 3rd Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

Noah Neundorfer – Death Guard – 4th Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

The Best of the Rest

The Great Game GT

Daniel Moscato – Tzeentch Daemons – 1st Place

The List

Archetype

Final Round Matchup

Thoughts

The Best of the Rest

Battlefield Birmingham 20

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission – Recover the Relics

Thoughts

Result

Luke Richards – Astra Militarum – 1st Place

The List

Archetype

Final Round Matchup

Thoughts

Paul James – Dark Angels – 2nd Place (Undefeated)

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

The Best of the Rest

Team arKCanite Presents: Planet arKCanite At Comicon 2023

Tedd Williamson – Necrons – 1st Place

The List

Archetype

Final Round Matchup

Thoughts

The Best of the Rest

OP’s 1st GT Smash

Jake Nelson – Iron Hands Successors – 1st Place

The List

Archetype

Final Round Matchup

Thoughts

Scott Toebe – Death Guard – 2nd Place (Undefeated)

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

The Best of the Rest

War Of The Roses 2023

Mani Cheema – Dark Angels – 1st Place

The List

Archetype

Final Round Matchup

Thoughts

The Best of the Rest

Energy City Open

Drew Ward – Space Wolves Successors – 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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