All stragglers are now accounted for, and Warzone Nephilim is now the only game in town.

Good news – the immediate result appears to be one of the most healthy and diverse metagames we’ve had for ages. Most of the top factions from the previous metagame are still around in some shape or form, but a whole new array of armies are now clearly able to challenge them for dominance and rise to the top tables. The metagame always takes a month or so to fully shake out, so we’ll need to see what happens as the weeks roll on, but right now impressions are extremely positive, and I’m pretty optimistic about what the next few months hold.

So let’s get a look at those hot-off-the-battlefield results. Today we’re looking at:

The Show Me Showdown (major)
Bournemouth Brawl (major)
Coastal Wargaming & Warp Charged Gaming GT (major)
Arch City GT
Hometown 40K
Viking Gaming GT
Happy Birthday Mr. Goblin

French readers may be asking where the Paris GT is, and the answer is that we only found out about it on Tuesday afternoon, so didn’t have time to get it written up for this article. Do not despair, however – there will be a part 2 later in the week (probably on Friday) to cover that, so check back then if you want to see what went down at one of the largest singles events outside of the UK or US that we’ve seen for a while!

As with the last few weeks, where a player was undefeated and not in first place, I have noted it next to their placing.

The Show Me Showdown

109-player, 6-round Grand Tournament in KCMO, MO, US on July 09 2022. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown (At the Showdown)

Matchup & Mission – Tide of Conviction

Nathaniel Bjorge – Necrons: Eternal Expansionists skewed heavily to be hard to attack – two C’tan, including the Deceiver for redeploy, and the Silent King.
Army List - Click to Expand

vs.

Connor Haugen – Harlequins: Light Saedath that’s heavy on shooty Skyweavers with the bolas and Haywire.
Army List - Click to Expand

Thoughts

It’s finally real this time – they buffed Necrons and they’re immediately in a Showdown, taking on one of their most ancient foes in the form of the Harlequins.

Plenty of what’s in the Harlequin list will be pretty recognisable, but the swing towards haywire/bolas bikes is new (and not only seen here). With Light Saedath needing to play more cautiously to get the full benefit of their trait, having mobile shooting units that can play quite cagily is definitely an upside, and star bolas are also very strong into many of the factions that are on the rise. Here those are great into the Tomb Blades, while the large quantity of Haywire is going to force the Silent King to play a bit more cautiously than he might want. Beyond that, a single foot troupe feels like a necessary melee hammer unit in the meta that’s emerging if you aren’t going for melee bikes, and Light Saedath boats with Troupes are still extremely good.

Over on the Necron side, this first list (good news, there are more) is very much a skew build, taking maximum advantage of some of the heftiest price cuts that Necrons received. Lokhust Destroyers are another unit that’s great into lots of what’s now out there, and 40pts each is finally a price tag where they feel seriously worth it. Tomb Blades are also cheaper than ever, and because they and the Destroyers are both relatively mobile, it’s going to be hard to hide from them.

That’s particularly true because of the Deceiver, and as long time readers will know I’m a massive C’tan fan, so it’s great to see a couple in the list. Using the redeploy will make it very hard for opponents to hide from the shooty threats, and allow the Silent King to pivot how aggressive he’s being depending on who wins the first turn. C’tan are, as ever, incredible against armies that don’t have the mortals to one-round them too, really helping control the flow of the game while the shooting does its work. In Eternal Expansionists, you also have the play of dropping them on an objective alongside some hidden scarabs, so whatever comes to try and melee the bugs off has to face an unkillable star god. Nifty.

Overseeing it all, of course, is the Silent King, a strong contender for best unit in the game after the latest buffs. He’s cheaper than ever, a fount of command points in a mission pack that’s short on them, absurdly dangerous in two phases now he gets his own re-rolls, and supercharges shooting and melee threats alike across the army. He’s also a decent beneficiary from the change to Command Protocols – taking Protocol of the Conquering Tyrant as your game-long effect to boost his aura radius can allow him to impact a much greater proportion of the board while safely behind a wall, and while that’s probably more relevant for the lists combining him with melee units than it is for this one, it’s a good trick to have access to. Really the only obstacle to him being in every Necron list is that he takes forever to paint, and expect a lot of people to be working away at that right now (I certainly am).

So, two powerful armies, how do they stack up? The good news is that I think both sides have stuff going for them in this game, and both players can make a real play for it. Tools on each side force some of what the other has to stay cautious, or blunts some of the nastiest edges. Skyweavers and boats shutting down shooting re-rolls significantly lessens the power of the Necron shooting, and the Light Saedath trait will have an impact too. The Skyweavers are also a very nasty threat to the Tomb Blades and Silent King, making them play very cautiously.

From the other direction, however, the C’tan are very strong in this matchup – the Harlequin list only has a couple of ways of doing damage outside the shooting and fight phases (a single Smite from the shadowseer and a single unit with an embrace for the charge stratagem), so swiftly dealing with them is going to be tricky. Anything that commits to fighting one in melee is also likely to be destroyed as a consequence, potentially giving up some Code of Combat points on the way. Sky of Falling Stars is even substantially less dead here than it can be against Harlequins – gradually chipping away at the big troupe and maybe clipping some wounds off the big bike unit is actively pretty useful. Entropic Strike does also mean that one false move from a key Character and they’re getting punted straight into the void.

On this particular mission, I think the Necron advantages end up helping slightly more – not enough to make this a sure thing, but certainly favouring them. The Harlequins can’t confront the C’tan quickly, and Tide of Conviction forces confrontation, so they’re likely to fall pretty behind on stuff over the first few turns. Couple that with it being very easy for the Necrons to deny them primary early on via Scarabs and I think you have a situation where the Harlequins have to make pretty high risk plays to stay in the scoring, with a high chance of getting destroyed if those go wrong. As mentioned, I don’t think it’s a sure thing, but the Necrons did end up taking victory.

Result

Necrons Victory – 76 – 49

Nathaniel Bjorge – Necrons – 1st Place

The List

See showdown.

Archetype

Silent King C’tan

Thoughts

Hell yeah! Mostly this is covered off in the showdown, the only more general point to highlight is that the Deceiver feels especially good in a build with such a low drop count and several high powered shooting bombs – it makes the list very flexible in how it sets up, and very effective at early adaptation. That was enough for Nathaniel to pilot it all the way to victory, taking out a lot of very strong lists on the way. Great stuff, and great to see Necrons doing well.

Ben Cherwien – Ulthwe – 2nd Place (Undefeated)

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Ulthwe Goodstuff with D-Cannons

Thoughts

In terms of top placings, Craftworlds appear to have had the biggest initial falloff of any of the previous top factions (which I would roughly assess as them, Tau, Tyranids and Harlequins), but as Ben shows here, they’re still perfectly capable of finishing undefeated at a major in the right hands – and perhaps with some changes from what was strong before. There were still some decent performances from Hail of Doom elsewhere, but Ben’s Ulthwe list is the most significant departure from what we’ve seen previously, and put in the best Craftworld showing of the weekend.

Part of that is that he’s leant in to the new-found freedom to take Craftworld units of all shapes and sizes. There’s plenty of good stuff in the book that you just didn’t take before because the faction was so strong at playing To The Last that it wasn’t worth it. Now, you can add upgraded Wave Serpents, which are strong all-rounder tanks, and use units like Wraithblades and D-cannons where they’re very potent, but either play a role where they’re expected to die at some point, or are very vulnerable to specific lines of attack.

The way this list appears to function relies on that – you’ve basically got Rangers, Baharroth and the redeploy Aspects for skirmishing objective play early on, then the Wraithblades to ram into a key choke point with some hefty buffs up (importantly including ObSec) to demand answers. When the opponent comes after them, the melee Aspect Warriors can inflict hefty punishment, psychic damage from the Farseers will do some serious work and six D-cannons (with access to +1 to hit from Discipline of the Black Guardians) will atomise any high quality unit that dares stray into range. In combination, this list ends up answering one of the serious challenges Craftworlds have, which is how to play their secondaries – you can absolutely pick The Hidden Path with this list, and with very careful use of Baharroth and the melee aspects, Khaine’s Wrath isn’t completely out of the question. I’m slightly wondering if there’s any way to harvest the points for a unit of Shining Spears to really seal the deal on that latter point, but this build is tight, and all the units in it have a pretty clear purpose, so it’s a hard change to make.

A really nice army overall, and reassuring to see that there are options for Craftworld players to deal with the changes they face. Great stuff from Ben. Man loves his black armoured factions.

Scott Blegen – Necrons – 3rd Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Silent King Eternal Expansionists

Thoughts

Your eyes do not deceive you (though the Deceiver is not here this time). A second Necron list in the first top four of the week, this time looking at the other route you can go with the Silent King and Expansionists, which is melee pressure. Adding either a gamelong boost to strength or the size of the King’s aura makes the primary pressure this army exerts even harder to deal with than it was in older versions.

Eternal Expansionists has always been a strong ability, but what has kept it off consistent high performances is that some opponents can just roll it over, notably fast melee builds. The significant boost to melee power this list enjoys makes that a far more tenuous prospect, giving this game into a broader set of opponents, and I think the Command Protocols change really unlocks the potential of Ophydian Destroyers in particular. They were previously a glass cannon unit that didn’t hit quite hard enough to justify it, but changing their base strength to five on the charge in games where that’s needed largely solves that problem (4 to 5 being possibly the single most impactful strength jump you can get). Here they’re great as a tool to punish whatever comes out to fight the big Warrior unit, as they’ll often trade up into something bogged down.

This list is seriously nasty across the course of a game, and once again the Silent King is an absolute dynamo. If you just want to slice galactic usurpers into tiny pieces, this is the build for you, and congratulations to Scott on third.

Dan Sammons – Orks – 4th Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Goff Pressure

Thoughts

Goff Pressure has been doing OK recently, but has had the fundamental problem of just not quite having the killing power not to fold against the best Tyranid lists. It’s no surprise then that levelling the field has left them looking pretty spicy – Kill Rigs are back to their absolute bargain codex price, so slamming three into your opponents face is incredible again, and they’re now even tougher to shift on your alpha turn thanks to the 5+ invulnerable save Waaagh now hands out. That’s useful elsewhere on the Stormboyz, as if you commit with them on the turn that the invulnerable save is up they aren’t going to drop instantly to whatever counterattack your opponent musters, making them much more enduringly useful. Goffs want to land a hammer blow that their opponent can’t recover from, and the balance dataslate has massively boosted how well this build does that.

The other big pickup the army has received is access to the new Secondaries. This list obviously plays Stomp Em Good very well, and can sometimes go for Da Biggest and Da Best, but on plenty of maps Get Da Good Bits is fantastic too – the fact that Gretchin can complete it on the same turn and you can do it repeatedly on objectives means that you can oftern rack up a high score on it while your opponent is still struggling to handle your early pressure, locking in some big points for later.

Orks needed some love and they got it, so hopefully warbosses everywhere are mustering their Waaaghs even now. Well done to Dan on fourth place.

The Best of the Rest

There were 7 more players on 5-1 records. They were:

5th – Broc Bowman – Imperial Knights: A Taranis Paladin and Crusader do their standard high-powered team up, with seven Armigers in support.
6th – Connor Haugen – Harlequins: See showdown.
7th – Clint Eubanks – Imperial Knights: Ultra-aggro House Raven with two upgraded Errants leading loads of Warglaives into battle.
8th – Ethan Curran – Tau: Tau Sept Goodstuff that sticks with three Crisis teams, albeit slightly smaller, choosing to cut out any Commanders other than Shadowsun, and bring Longstrike and a Hammerhead instead (presumably to save on CP).
9th – Jeremy Capko – Iron Hands: Iron Hands Redemptor spam with a character Contemptor, a Dev Pod and Sicaran backing it up.
10th – Bob Dong – Tau: Farsight/Shadowsun teamup, leading one massive Crisis bomb and lots of smaller units and Hammerheads into battle. Handy that you don’t have to blow a Warlord Trait on Shadowsun when doing this combo now, makes it seem relatively more interesting.
11th – John Johnston – Tyranids: Leviathan running lots of Carnifexes and a full Termagant block protecting a Tervigon, giving a powerful regenerating wave of chitin to roll over the board with.

Bournemouth Brawl 2022 – Super Major

66-player, 7-round Major in England, GB on July 08 2022. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission – Death and Zeal

Rob Mackie – Harlequins: Light Saedath leaning heavily into melee Skyweavers.
Army List - Click to Expand

vs.

Mani Cheema – Adepta Sororitas: Bloody Rose Goodstuff.
Army List - Click to Expand

Thoughts

Bloody Rose Goodstuff is the new phrase I expect to be typing a lot, as it’s one of the clear breakout successes of the weekend. There’s a lot of overlap between the various builds, with the main difference often being exactly where they’ve moved the sliders between Zephyrim, Repentia and Sacresants, but they’re pretty much all aiming to play a strong all-rounder/trade game, and leverage their excellent Secondaries to ride that to victory.

Mani’s list has gone particularly hard on the more aggressive melee options, taking three units each of Repentia and Zephyrim. That’s particularly good in this matchup, as it allows him to avoid getting out maneuvred by the clowns, and lots of Zephyrim in particular means that he’s very capable of wrapping multiple transports in a single turn, potentially inflicting a blow the Aeldari can’t recover from. That forces some significant caution from their side, though they do at least have the saving grace of multiple Skyweaver units to help out. These seem very strong here, as while Armour of Contempt does blunt zephyrglaives a bit, denying the opponent re-rolls and giving them -1 to hit in melee makes them far more capable of engaging with Repentia than a lot of units, and from a shooting point of view the trade of having low strength but good AP on the haywire is one you’re absolutely happy to make here. To a lesser extent, the neuro disruptors seeded in various units are also great, helping plink away at Zephyrim units.

In terms of game plans from each side, my assumption on this mission is that Mani wants to take Defend the Shrine and move in force to occupy the objective in the top-left quarter (from his point of view), probably also putting the Take Your Places marker 6″ from the centre in that direction if that’s the objective thats been picked. Player-placed Terrain makes Defend even stronger than it is normally here. At that point, the Harlequins have to come to him, ideally giving him plenty of opportunities to make favourable trades while racking up lots of points on Leap of Faith and Defend. If the Harlequins run out of stuff, he can also move out and score very highly on Sacred Ground, as multiple units can score that in a single turn.

To try and counter this from the Harlequin side of the table, I think the play might be to pass up on Take Your Places and to plan to skirmish boats on the objectives in your “half” of the table, use characters and units out of them to fight for the centre, then send the two big Skyweaver units on a thrust into the Sororitas Deployment zone. They’re fast, they’re the units best able to soak up a counterattack from the melee stuff, and might be able to overwhelm whatever has been left behind. Because of the threat of Sacred Ground (if that’s been picked) it’s critical for the Harlequins to stay on the board all through the game, and I think doing this probably gives them the best chance of pulling that off. In the event, it looks like Mani took this one – it may be that being able to give whatever he’s about to send out to brawl ObSec on top of everything else was enough to tip the scales.

Result

Adepta Sororitas Victory – 94 – 72

Mani Cheema – Adepta Sororitas – 1st Place

The List

See showdown.

Archetype

Bloody Rose Goodstuff

Thoughts

Get used to this, I suspect you’re going to be seeing it a lot. Fantastic melee units, shooting that can punch above its weight via miracles and Vahl’s re-rolls, surprising durability thanks to Armour of Contempt, excellent Secondaries, and the ability to at least mess with the opponent’s psychic phase even if they don’t have one themselves. Sisters have got it all, and congratulations to Mani for taking them to a first big win.

Nassim Fouchane – Adeptus Astartes – 2nd Place

A unit of 5 Iron Hands Incursors standing around, doing nothing — Credit: head58

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Iron Hands Successors

Thoughts

Nassim’s Iron Hand Successor builds never really stopped being good, but now they can be great again. The combination of the Iron Hands Doctrine and Master Artisans for shooting and Whirlwind for melee punch allows every unit in this list to excel at its role, and ensures that the army has an incredibly powerful alpha strike available to it when needed. A trio of Redemptors provides some serious backbone on top of that, and lurking next to them is the brutally effective Character Contemptor, ready to atomise anything it looks at funny. I actually have a quote from Nassim on this one (I was at this event) regarding whether the price of the Contemptor is still worth it in Nephilim:

“3CP, so half my CP on my Contemptor? Of course I’m going to take it, and anyone who doesn’t is crazy”.

If you’ve never seen the Contemptor in action it can be hard to grasp just how devastating it is, but I very much have and am basically fully agreed with this. It’s also fantastic into a lot of Necron tools, so if they’re strong in the meta, it becomes an even better choice. Nassim does, of course, bring huge experience with this army to bear on top of everything else, and it’s a well-deserved second place for him here.

David Gaylard – Tyranids – 3rd Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Leviathan Warrior Spam

Thoughts

Leviathan Warriors are still an incredibly good unit, and this army plays board control and the Primary with the best of them. With that as a plan A rather than just annihiliating opponents (the old Tyranid trick), having to downgrade Harpies to only have stranglethorn cannons to save points also hurts less – you still get the incredible value from the Spore Mines they generate, and the stranglethorns aren’t irrelevant, just less exceptional than venom cannons.

I do like the choice David has made here to bring a second unit of Venomthropes – it means that he can spread out his Warriors across much more of the table while staying in the -1 to hit bubble, helping them outlast whatever the opponent throws at them. They’ll also, very occasionally, provide a bonus spike on Cranial Feasting as they are one of the few units that have the Feeder Tendrils keyword.

Overall, still a very daunting army to play into, and another fantastic finish from David.

Rob Mackie – Harlequins – 4th Place

The List

See showdown.

Archetype

Light Saedath with Bikes

Thoughts

Mostly covered in the showdown, the big novelty here is running two big bike squads, and I think it’s a pretty good call – with the longer range needed to trigger the Light Saedath ability, having a very powerful countercharge available to discourage the opponent (and one that can also comfortably pivot to an early big push in games that need it) is extremely valuable. With some signs of Knights on the rise, they also provide the army with a way of engaging heavy vehicles that is a bit more flexible than Voidweavers. Anyone who’s been playing Harlequins for a while presumably has 15 bikes kicking around, so look forward to getting those back on the table, and well done to Rob on rounding out these results.

The Best of the Rest

There were 10 more players on 5-2 records. They were:

5th – James Shapiro – Adepta Sororitas: Bloody Rose Goodstuff with Repentia, Sacresants, Zephyrim and Retributors to deal damage, Celesting and Vahl in charge, and a pair of Dogmata to help with objective play.
6th – Vik Vijay – Adepta Sororitas: Bloody Rose Goodstuff with even more Repentia and Zephyrim, plus an Immolator to carry some stuff around.
7th – Ryan Williams – Harlequins: Light Saedath with boats, Skyweavers and a single big Voidweaver unit.
8th – Liam Callebout – Craftworlds: Hail of Doom with max Dire Avengers and Asurmen, plus two units of Howling Banshees to help force Wrath of Khaine.
9th – Ben Jones – Adepta Sororitas: Bloody Rose Goodstuff once more.
10th – Stephen Box – Blood Angels: Smashtastic Blood Angels with loads of Sanguinary Guard, powerful Characters and Stephen’s signature unit of Assault Centurions. I played against this round seven and even the melee might of Novokh and the Nightbringer couldn’t out brawl this!
11th – Matt Barrett – Imperial Knights: Taranis with a Forge Master Crusader to snipe from home, then lots of Warglaives with an Errant.
12th – Paul Bridge – Tyranids: Heavy psychic Leviathan goodstuff, doubling up on Neurothropes and Zoanthropes alongside the usual suspects.
13th – Aaron Mosquera – Tyranids: Kraken Pressure with lots of Raveners and a PyroPod.
14th – Dan Bates – Craftworlds: Hail of Doom spamming Dire Avengers and shuriken catapult Windriders.

Coastal Wargaming & Warp Charged Gaming Major

60-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in BattleGrounds, Midlothian, VA, US on July 09 2022. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission – Abandoned Sanctuaries

Patrick Parker – Harlequins: Light Saedath with lots of small threats, three small bike units and three separate Voidweavers.
Army List - Click to Expand

vs.

Austin Wingfield – Black Templars: Helbrecht, two Chaplains and an Apothecary leading a trio of nightmare melee units into battle.
Army List - Click to Expand

Thoughts

Black Templars get their first big showing in the new season in the hands of Austin Wingfield, making the most of the incredible power of Helbrecht and the great suite of upgrade options they have access to. The plan doesn’t seem particularly complicated here – the Terminators are an absolute nightmare tarpit with Armour of Contempt, and can make good use of the extra movement from Abhor the Witch, Destroy the Witch to get into position in many matchups (including this one). Once there, there aren’t many armies that can shift them, and in a somewhat dubious move (hand in your purity seals and templar cross) they’ll also be escorting a Psyker, opening up the option of scoring a Warpcraft secondary while chilling out and getting points on Oaths. Mobile VanVets provide a great combo with this central block, providing roving troubleshooters that can disrupt the opponent’s plans or deal with flanking.

The Harlequins here straight up cannot crack the central block, and that’s a big problem for them. The advantage they do have is that their list goes very wide, and is pretty good at picking off other units like the Vanguard Veterans, so it feels like they have to play for trying to deplete the Marine numbers and scoring via the flank objectives, but I’m going to level that I think this is one of those matchups where the central problem they’re up against is a bit too steep, at least on this mission. The central objective in Abandoned Sanctuaries is especially important, and it’s really hard to see how you win against an opponent that can continuously dominate it with a unit you can’t clear (especially as them doing so also turns off one of the Harlequins’ best Secondaries). The clowns put up a reasonably good score in the end, but I suspect that’s pretty near their ceiling for this game, and they’re going to struggle to ever keep the Templar score down.

Result

Black Templars Victory – 92 – 71

Austin Wingfield – Black Templars – 1st Place

The List

See showdown.

Archetype

Black Templars

Thoughts

Terminator deathball 2022, here we go. Who needs Grey Knight Paladins anyway? Armour of Contempt allowing you to switch to Terminators that actually project threat outwards rather than needing to always use hammer/shield ones is super good for this list, as it allows it to draw huge value from Helbrecht’s re-rolls on top of everything else. Knights also need to watch out here, as all those chainfists will make a horrific mess of them. There are armies that can take a chunk out of the Terminators, and a few units they need to genuinely be wary of (Skorpekh Destroyers with the Silent King in tow can do some damage) but against a lot of opponents the Templars are going to get to dictate the pace of the game, and that’s always a great place to be. A fantastic finish from Austin.

Charles Morrow – Tyranids – 2nd Place (Undefeated)

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Kraken big bugs

Thoughts

If Black Templars bringing a Psyker is heresy, is a Tyranid list without any Hive Tyrants blasphemy? Unclear. Anyway, it’s nice to see some quite different stuff succeeding for the Hive Mind, with this build showing off the power of the Tervigon. These popped up in a few builds over the weekend, and when you stack the relic/trait combo seen here on one they honestly become spectacularly nasty when they connect, and provide serious durability to the list. The opponent can’t shoot it till they clear lots of the Termagants, and the Tervigon is going to be constantly reviving them all the way down. Their guns are also somewhat scary once the +1 to hit from the Tervigon is factored in, generally making them pretty useful.

Teaming that massive ball of durability up with some (also very durable) shooty bugs and Venomthropes allows this list to dominate any war of attrition at range, and up close the Tervigon’s rampage potential is going to punish opponents that try to close. Kraken’s speed boost ensures that when the list needs to get a move on it can, and the extra AP in melee is relevant to a lot of stuff here as well. Similar to Ben’s Ulthwe list above, it’s great to see some alternative options from powerful books explored in an innovative fashion here.

Kevin Leonard – Evil Sunz – 3rd Place

Goff deffkopta three-piece Rotörhead. Credit: Charlie Brassley

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Evil Sunz Speed Mob

Thoughts

Speed Mob is very much a known quantity – it’s a powerful build, but because it’s very bad at hiding it’s particularly vulnerable to armies that can blow it off the table at a distance, and several of the previously dominant factions could very much do that. With those knocked down a few notches, and some discounts on the various buggies, the Speedwaaagh is very much back in the game, as Kevin has shown here. The only note of caution on that is that the army does suffer a little from the heavy impetus to squeeze into one detachment – it doesn’t need a massive number of relics or traits, so it can go for two if needed, but if you’re trying to save CP then you end up pretty fixed on what units you can take with only six Fast Attack slots to play with!

Patrick Parker – Harlequins – 4th Place

The List

See showdown.

Archetype

Light Saedath

Thoughts

This Harlequin list goes particularly wide, which makes it very good for playing objectives (and would probably help against trade-focused matchups like Sororitas), but comes with the tradeoff that it can struggle to crack big tarpits, which counted against it in the final. Still an excellent build, and it’s kind of refreshing that we’re seeing a much broader set of fine-tuning choices in Harlequin lists than we have for a while. Well done to Patrick on the top four finish.

The Best of the Rest

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

5th – Larry Oliver – Tyranids: Leviathan Goodstuff that defiantly sticks to double Tyrant (one being the Swarmlord) and a Maleceptor, plus Warriors to anchor the board.
6th – Stephen Henry – Adeptus Custodes: Shooty Emperor’s Chosen with Achillus Dreads, Caladius Tanks and Sagittarum, plus an Inquisitor for Secondaries.
7th – David Penfold – Thousand Sons: Magnus and two Cult of Duplicity Scarab bricks.
8th – Bobby Soto – Tyranids: Kraken with the Swarmlord/Tyrant/Maleceptor setup.
9th – Blue Ford – Orks: Evil Sunz Speed Mob with lots of Deffkoptas and some planes.
10th – Sean Coots – Chaos Space Marines: A very strong showing here, as Sean was the fourth undefeated player going into the final round. His army uses the Black Legion, combining Abaddon with a tooled-up brick of Terminators (with the Black Rune and Illusory Supplication available) to terrorize the table. A Discolord provides an additional hammer threat, Marked Legionaries provide great objective holders, and three squads of chosen act as additional brawler units.
11th – Josh Shiben – Genestealer Cult: Industrial Affinity Neophyte Spam with one big Acolyte unit and lots of Purestrains backing them up.

Arch City GT

47-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Columbus, OH, US on July 09 2022. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Note: I realised too late to change it that I should have put the match between the 2nd and 3rd place players in the Showdown here, as the eventual winner got paired down in the final. Apologies!

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission – Data Scry-Salvage

Pete Hoye – Iron Hands Successors: Red Scorpions with the Master Artisans/Whirlwind combo, using a Land Raider Achilles and a Leviathan to take advantage of Iron Hands stratagems.
Army List - Click to Expand

vs.

Brenton Weiss – T’au Empire: Tau Sept Goodstuff.
Army List - Click to Expand

Thoughts

Another thing you have always been able to do with Iron Hands is use their stratagems to amp up the power of over-the-top Forge World vehicles, and that’s very much the plan here – the Land Raider Achilles is pretty cool, driving a Tactical Squad around is cute, and it’s a strong place to drop some buffs (especially the Ironstone), and tag-teaming it with the Leviathan provides some strong killing power and decent pressure. Bringing an Inquisitor and a spare Psyker allows good exploitation of that to rack up some points, and the general good quality of all the other units here lets the list handle other parts of the table. The use of the Red Scorpion Named Characters is definitely something to take note of here – part of the reason you didn’t see these before is that you were generally better building something precision-tooled using traits and relics, but now that you need your CP for other things they become a lot more attractive, and they fit well into this list.

Sadly for the Iron Hands, the Tau army here is extremely well equipped to do horrible things to them. Seeing Longstrike across the table is always going to generate a bit of a sinking feeling if you’re planning around hefty vehicles (though a Master of the Forge does at least mean that unless they commit to taking one out they’re wasting their time), but the Crisis units here are also excellent at picking off the rest of the army, especially if they get close. The Crisis Teams are not, to be fair, indestructible, so do need to be a little careful about how much firepower they get exposed to, but the shooting threat of the Iron Hands list isn’t massive, and it feels like the Tau are better able to use the guns they’ve got. The trio of Commanders and strong short-ranged shooting also means that reaching out and trying to hit the Tau in melee is likely going to result in big losses.

Given the scoreline on what can be a fairly low-scoring mission, my assumption here has to be that both sides went for a shootout option, aiming to dominate one of the two objective clusters in the mid board while whittling down the opposing forces to enable a push later on. I assume Banners on both sides (much safer for the Tau now that the Incursors can’t stop Kroot from raising one turn one), Grind from at least the Tau, and then maybe Relays for the final Tau option and Psychic Interrogation for at least one of what the Marines had left. While both sides picked up lots of points, the Tau came up ahead, presumably managing to eventually deplete the Marine forces enough that their scoring dropped off at the end of the game.

Result

T’au Empire Victory – 100 – 88

Brenton Weiss – T’au Empire – 1st Place

The List

See showdown.

Archetype

Tau Sept Goodstuff

Thoughts

This build is quite unusual among this week’s Tau showings in that it’s the only one sticking to three Crisis Teams and three Commanders. That doesn’t leave it with that much else, and it needs to be very careful about stopping the Crisis Teams getting alphaed (as their defensive setup isn’t that deep), but does mean it retains some horrendous killing power, enough to level armies as tough as the Iron Hands we just saw. Like with Harlequins, it’s good to see that there are some actual choices at play for what configuration of Tau to bring, but it’s also clear that there’s still life in the classic builds – great work from Brenton.

Lyle Dixon – T’au Empire – 2nd Place (Undefeated)

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Tau Sept Goodstuff

Thoughts

Tau Commanders are really good, it turns, out, as this is our second build that’s still happy to dump all of its CP into maxing out on them. The immediate pivot to Aun’va in both of these builds is also completely unsurprising, as not having to invest CP to get access to multiple invocations is an obvious huge boon. Elsewhere, this list goes the route of cutting down to only two Crisis Teams, then filling out with Hammerheads as additional threats and occasional position pieces. Tau do not appear to be going anywhere, and congratulations to Lyle on making it a double header for the Greater Good in the undefeated slots.

The Best of the Rest

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

3rd – James Wallin – Death Guard: Inexorable with Terminators, Daemon Engines and a full Plague Marine block as a wrecking ball.
4th – Garrett Stacy – Death Guard: Completely different Death Guard, going for Terminus Est Assault force with 80 Poxwalkers, two full Plague Marine squads and 3×5 Deathshrouds. Looks like a nightmare to clear off the board.
5th – Joe Cottrell – Necrons: Novokh with the Silent King then a three way spam of Flayed Ones, Skorpekh Destroyers and Lokhusts.
6th – Kody Doyle – Death Guard: Mortarion’s Anvil with the Primarch himself, a big Deathshroud block, them a mix of Contemptors and Daemon Engines.
7th – Josh Sexton – Adepta Sororitas: All-rounder Bloody Rose with a unit of Paragon Warsuits and some solo Mortifiers as cheap positional units.
8th – Joe Laurent – Chaos Knights: Vextrix with a tanky Abominant, Desecrator and Rampager with Stalkers and Brigands in support.
9th – Jason Sniegowski – Tyranids: Kraken Pressure with a tonne of Raveners.

Hometown 40K

38-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Edmonton, Alberta, CA on July 09 2022. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission – Tide of Conviction

Daniel Chrenek – Tyranids: Carnifex Spam Leviathan Monster Mash

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vs.

Riley Tremblay – Adepta Sororitas: Bloody Rose Goodstuff
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Thoughts

Another spin on Tyranids on show here, going all in on the power, grace and elegance of the noble Carnifex. Six Carnifexes with a Maleceptor behind them is a lot for most armies to deal with, but Bloody Rose Sisters are very much not “most armies” in this context. For a start, they have limited premium targets for the venom cannons – the Castigator is probably not long for the world, but after that even the Retributor squads are packing extra models to soak up high-end shots. That last point also helps a bit against the threat of Harpy bombing runs (but the Harpy is still the absolute top priority target for the Sisters), and just generally means that the Tyranids aren’t going to be putting damage into this army nearly as fast as they’d like, especially with anti-psychic tricks added on top.

The same is very much not true in reverse – multi-meltas buffed by Vahl and Acts of Faith are exactly what you want for turning Carnifexes and Harpies into molten chitin, and even the Repentia are less anemic than they could be thanks to access to the Savage Twist stratagem to up their damage a bit. The Dogmata and low ObSec count in the Tyranid army also means that every time battle is joined it likely tips scoring towards the Sisters a bit. As ever, Tide of Conviction serves to really amplify any mismatches like this, because it leaves the Tyranids with limited good options – advance on a broad front and they probably get minced up, hang back and sacrificial ObSeced units from the Sisters side deny them points, and try and out-shoot the Sisters and they probably fail. Don’t forget too that the Sisters pull massively ahead on Secondaries here just by securing their nearest two objectives, which would be enough to max Defend the Shrine and pick up an 11 on Sacred Grounds.

Adding it all up I think going YOLO mode and trying to overrun the Sisters is probably the best plan available to the Tyranids, and the one with a chance of working if the dice are kind, but I’d still give the nod to the Sisters to take the game, and they did.

Result

Adepta Sororitas Victory – 91 – 54

Riley Tremblay – Adepta Sororitas – 1st Place

The List

See showdown.

Archetype

Bloody Rose Goodstuff

Thoughts

The big Retributor units are the standout feature compared to other builds we’ve looked at, and soaking up shots from things like venom cannons is genuinely useful, as it makes it tough to strip out the army’s anti-tank at range (the Castigator is loaded for anti-infantry instead). Beyond that choice and the tank this is pretty much business as usual for the Bloody Rose, our last top table showing for them for the day. Great stuff from Riley.

The Best of the Rest

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

2nd – Darren Jac – Orks: Goff Pressure, eschewing transports to field a wall of Meganobz and Squighogs rampaging up the board under Ghaz’s leadership (or alternatively using a Tellyporta, as the list has lots of CP).
3rd – Ryan McLeod – Adeptus Custodes: Shooty Emperor’s Chosen with Caladius Tanks and Achillus Dreads.
4th – Daniel Chrenek – Tyranids: See showdown.
5th – Chris Zuniga – Tyranids: Behemoth Lurk monster mash, with lots of Carnifexes.

Viking Games Warhammer 40.000 Summer Grand Tournament

38-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Östergötlands län, SE on July 09 2022. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission – Secure Missing Artefacts

Robin Kinnunen – T’au Empire: Bork’an Hammerhead Spam
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vs.

Mikael Klangeby – Deathwatch: Kill Team Strike Force, adding an extremely nasty shooty unit in the form of a Spectrus team with the (now free) las fusils.
Army List - Click to Expand

Thoughts

Kill Team Strike force returns, freshly empowered with some spicy new tricks and ready to take the battle to the Tau here. Most of what’s in the Deathwatch build is pretty familiar from what Strike Force lists had evolved to prior to the high powered book wave at the start of this year – big Indomitor teams provide durable board control and can flatten absolutely anything with Specialism Extremis thanks to being Aquila, while melee-Proteus teams can absolutely rocket up the battlefield with the White Scars chapter-tactic enabled, using the size of bike bases to get masses of extra reach for a charge.

The new things at play here are that this list absolutely smashes the new version of Deathwatch’s Cripple Stronghold secondary, as between the hardcore Indomitor teams, Optimised Priority and the ability to redeploy the Spectrus team they should almost never struggle with this, and that same Spectrus team is now a serious anti-tank threat on top of everything else thanks to las fusils being free. Factor in Armour of Contempt too and there’s some spectacular potential here.

In this game, it’s very much throwing out threats that the Tau army isn’t built to handle. The Bork’an list has excellent defensive skew from the hulls, and is great at taking out enemy monsters and vehicles, but doesn’t have access to the focused anti-heavy infantry firepower it needs to clear out the Indomitor teams at a distance, or to safely and reliably neutralise a big push by the Proteus units. They’re also going to have a horrendous time scoring any secondaries, while the Deathwatch should comfortably max Stronghold, and will pick up a good scores on Suffer Not the Alien and The Long Vigil just by playing the game aggressively. The Tau desperately want two turns to soften the Deathwatch up, but they’re just not going to have the time in the face of the mobility.

Result

Deathwatch Victory – 88 – 43

Mikael Klangeby – Deathwatch – 1st Place

The List

See showdown.

Archetype

Kill Team Strike Force

Thoughts

This list is genuinely terrifying, and plausibly very well positioned for the metagame – a lot of the places that nerfs and points increases fell in the recent changes were on stuff that’s great for clearing out heavy infantry (most notably the big increase in plasma rifle costs, and heavy venom cannons being harder to spam), and this list is ready to step into any vacuum created by that. It also feels like it has a chance of fist fighting Bloody Rose and winning, and will cheerfully bulldoze Necron Eternal Expansionists lists off the table. Watch this space, I’m thinking, and well done to Mikael for the win.

The Best of the Rest

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

2nd – Daniel Hesselberg – Imperial Knights: House Krast with two tooled-up Crusaders and a bunch of Armigers.
3rd – Jesper Unander-Scharin – Adepta Sororitas: Bloody Rose Goodstuff.
4th – Rickard Nilsson – Cult Mechanicus: Lucius Veteran Cohort, jumping in on once again being able to buff/teleport large units of Ironstriders with the Solar Flare and Luminescent Blessings.
5th – Jacob Nilsson – Harlequins: Light Saedath with three individual Voidweavers and a couple of small bike units for harrassment purposes.
6th – Robin Kinnunen – Tau: See showdown.

Happy Birthday, Mr. Goblin!

37-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Madrid, Comunidad de Madrid, ES on July 09 2022. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission – Unknown

Alejandro Mancuso Serrano – Thousand Sons: Cult of Duplicity double Scarab Occult.
Army List - Click to Expand

vs.

Angel C4KILLER (don’t ask me) – Drukhari: Drukhari Goodstuff
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Thoughts

I don’t have the mission here, so insight will be limited to the lists, where there’s honestly a pretty interesting game of cat and mouse going on. On the one hand, the attrition from Terminator shooting and psychic powers is going to be a big headache for the Drukhari, but on the other this list has access to some of the absolute best answers to Scarab Occult blocks out there – Drazhar, Incubi and the Competitive Edge/Whip Succubus are perfect for the job. The game becomes one of whether the Thousand Sons grind the Drukhari down enough that they can afford to commit to pushing them off the board before the Drukhari line up an opportunity to evaporate the Terminators and roll through the rest of the list from there. This, sadly, is where knowing the mission would help a lot – my gut feeling is that corner hold 1/2 games like Death and Zeal, Secure Missing and Conversion probably give Drukhari the edge, while hold 2/3 missions and Abandoned Sanctuaries probably help the Thousand Sons. Do let me know in the comments, but it’s clear that whatever mission was played both players did appreciate that this was a game that needed to be played very carefully, as the scores were pretty low and the Thousand Sons only narrowly took it.

Result

Thousand Sons Victory – 52 – 42

Alejandro Mancuso Serrano – Thousand Sons – 1st Place

The List

See showdown.

Archetype

Cult of Duplicity

Thoughts

Thousand Sons rock now – they were already putting up the occasional upset event win in The Before Times, and now benefit from weaker top competition, a great matchup into Necrons, and a few very welcome buffs. The one big issue that counts against all that is that they hate playing into Sisters a lot, which looks like it could be a serious concern. We will see if players figure out some exciting tech to help with that matchup, and in the meantime great work Alejandro.

The Best of the Rest

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

2nd – Juan-Diego Wendigo – Adepta Sororitas: Bloody Rose Goodstuff.
3rd – Gonzalo Raven – Harlequins: Twilight Saedath with lots of melee Skyweavers to take maximum advantage of the trait.
4th – Isaac Galán Sanchez – Death Guard: Inexorable, living up to the name with lots of Plague Marines and Terminators, plus some Bloat-drones to pressure the board.
5th – Daniel Ochoa Rodriguez – Craftworlds: Hail of Doom build around a big shuriken cannon windrider unit, with various Aspects and utility tools in support.
6th – Angel C4KILLER – Drukhari: See showdown.

Wrap Up

As mentioned, I’ll be back on Friday with a bonus round looking at the Paris GT, where we have another different faction and exciting new build on top of the standings. Don’t miss that, and have fun at any events you’re heading to this weekend – if you’ve been at all put off by the metagame so far this year, now’s a great time to get back on the tabletop.

Competitive Innovations in 9th: Nephilim Unleashed

The Showdown (At the Showdown)

Matchup & Mission – Tide of Conviction

Thoughts

Result

Nathaniel Bjorge – Necrons – 1st Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

Ben Cherwien – Ulthwe – 2nd Place (Undefeated)

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

Scott Blegen – Necrons – 3rd Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

Dan Sammons – Orks – 4th Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

The Best of the Rest

Bournemouth Brawl 2022 – Super Major

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission – Death and Zeal

Thoughts

Result

Mani Cheema – Adepta Sororitas – 1st Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

Nassim Fouchane – Adeptus Astartes – 2nd Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

David Gaylard – Tyranids – 3rd Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

Rob Mackie – Harlequins – 4th Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

The Best of the Rest

Coastal Wargaming & Warp Charged Gaming Major

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission – Abandoned Sanctuaries

Thoughts

Result

Austin Wingfield – Black Templars – 1st Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

Charles Morrow – Tyranids – 2nd Place (Undefeated)

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

Kevin Leonard – Evil Sunz – 3rd Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

Patrick Parker – Harlequins – 4th Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

The Best of the Rest

Arch City GT

Matchup & Mission – Data Scry-Salvage

Thoughts

Result

Brenton Weiss – T’au Empire – 1st Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

Lyle Dixon – T’au Empire – 2nd Place (Undefeated)

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

The Best of the Rest

Hometown 40K