Hello and welcome to another thrilling installment of everyone’s favorite column exploring the ins and outs of competitive play in Warhammer 40,000. James “One_Wing” Grover is currently on vacation doing whatever it is English people do on vacation, a topic I prefer not to think too deeply about given what they’ve been getting up to lately when they’re on the clock. That means I’ll be filling in to serve up some piping hot takes about the state of the meta or, failing that, whatever else comes to mind whenever I get sick of writing about Tyranid Warriors.

A quick review of prior literature indicates that I should start with some kind of declaration about how much tournament 40k has been played in the last week. Is this a lot of 40k? I’ll be honest: I don’t know, since I don’t generally read this column. However, Rob “TheChirurgeon” Jones assures me that “holy fuck there’s a lot of events”, so we’ll go with that.

Before we really get into it, though, we did wind up getting a dataslate since last week’s installment. You can read our take on it here, but the Executive Summary is that it went in the right direction but doesn’t appear to have gone nearly far enough. However, the biggest change you’re likely to see in coming weeks is to the Leviathan Warrior Spam lists, with a side of Harlequins all shifting their gamma sliders in unison from Light to Twilight.

We asked our favorite(?) Scottish Tyranids player, Innes Wilson, about the changes to Tyranids and his thoughts on what we can expect to see in the next few weeks:

“Expect to see less lists focussed on the durability of leviathan to eventually push itself into a win, and more lists that leverage a specific aspect of tyranids rather than falling into being good at everything.

Kraken, Behemoth and custom Hive Fleets make out like bandits, only losing some top end damage output on the ubiquitous Tyrant. Leviathan doesn’t disappear, as Hive Nexus and Synaptic Control Monsters provide durability you can’t get elsewhere in the codex, but it becomes much more of a build around, rather than something you accidentally fall into while running the best datasheets available.”

-Innes Wilson

Meanwhile if you need to know more about how Harlequins will fare switching to Twilight, you can just read Jack Harpster’s touranment recap as he took a Twilight list he’d never piloted to an 8-0 victory at the Chicago GW Open Major a few weeks ago.

Now for the important stuff: the Algorithm has spoken, and these are the tournaments up for discussion this week:

Frontline Gaming SoCal Open 2022 40k Champs
Malmö Wargaming Weekend VI
The Southampton Brawl – SCS
BreakingsHeads Cup #3 – Berlin
ARDKORE 40K Open
Come the Apocalypse GT 2022
Montréal Major Open
Dragon Fall 2022 40K Championship GT
RedFoxGT#1
Queen City Orktoberfest

We’ll hit the first five on that list today, then be back to cover the remainder tomorrow.

Having plumbed the depths of my soul in search of what I previously believed was a boundless well of beneficence, I determined that it was, in fact, bounded to a total of two Showdowns this week. Accordingly, we’ll be taking a look at:

Orks vs Chaos Space Marines at the SoCal Open; and
Daemons vs Ultramarines at Queen City Orktoberfest (this one’ll be tomorrow)

One final note before we jump in: I am shockingly unqualified to write this column. Why, then, would they let me, you ask? That’s an excellent question. I like to ask myself that sometimes.

Rob: Because the rest of us didn’t have time. That’s OK, though – I’ll add some only moderately more qualified notes as we go through these, with some thoughts where I think it’s worth giving them.

Frontline Gaming SoCal Open 2022 40K Champs

181-player, 6-round Grand Tournament in Frontline Gaming, Del Mar, CA, US on October 22 2022. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission – Secure Missing Artefacts

Benjamin Jurek – Goffs:
Army List - Click to Expand

vs.

Alan Dehesa – Black Legion:
Army List - Click to Expand

Thoughts

For this one we’re lucky to have Warboss Ben in the house to talk about the matchup himself, so we just went right to the source and had him tell us about the game:

“Warboss” Ben Jurek: It was the finals of Socal Open and the pressure was on. I was praying to Gork and Mork knowing I had a high chance of going into the Tyranids. Then the pairings went up and I ended up pairing into the Black Legion, piloted by Alan. He’s a stylish, kind fellow and we instantly hit it off with a similar positive energy, becoming best friends. We started off by explaining all the weird stuff that was unique to our factions and the obvious “gotchas” that exist in our codexes.

I went into the tournament knowing there would be a high number of Chaos Daemons and marine armies to battle through and adjusted my list with that inevitability in mind. I tweaked my list to have fewer kommandos than what I had been running and dropped 2 characters and 3 meganobs for Ghazghkul and a Warboss on Warbike. These are the game changers in this matchup. Spoiler: They won me this match. The final round was my 4th chaos faction matchup of the weekend.

Alan’s list had some of the common CSM takes (Abaddon, Lord Discordant, Master of Possession, Venomcrawler, Possessed), and some more off-the-wall picks like the Obliterators and the Terrax drill. I wasn’t too concerned about the Possessed brick; they don’t do that well going into Kill Rigs with ramshackle and I had many tools to answer them. They are a major part of his game plan however, and so I’d need to drop them quickly. Abaddon was a much more difficult problem for my list: He can be healed with the Master of Possession and if I didn’t handle him correctly he’d walk through my entire army. Then there was the insanely tanky Lord Discordant who, while not as worrisome as Abaddon, could cause me some huge problems.

Alan won the deployment roll off and dropped crates in the middle of the table (Rob: As an FLG event, the SoCal Open used player-placed terrain). I frowned, knowing this would open up some wide shooting lanes for him and his solid black legion shooting. I set up some drop stations for my kommandos and a nice little base for my priority target. The obvious objective marker moves were made and we began deployment.

Ben’s Secondaries

Assassination
Get Da Good Bitz
Stomp ‘Em Good

Alan’s Secondaries

Assassination
No Prisoners
Behind Enemy Lines

Some might question my Stomp ‘Em Good pick here; this was due to small spawn units and other such easy pickups. I don’t really kill anything in shooting so this was an attainable secondary.

Alan focused the majority of his forces to the top right of the triangle deployment, inside one large obscuring terrain piece. Seeing this I set up my bike boss cruise missile to take down those defenses. I also positioned my large Kommando groups on either flank of that triangle for some easy turn 1 charges, or if he went first some easy counter-charges after my Kommandos died.

I got exactly what I wanted, winning the roll-off to go first. I jet down the board, setting up my first and second waves of a planned assault. I know my boss on warbike with Fists of Gork could shred the Possessed but I wanted a backup option in case of some failures. I set up 3 turn 1 charges and I dropped his lord discordant down to 3 wounds with bomb squigs. During the Psychic and Shooting phases I dropped a couple of possessed, then I made all three of my charges. The Warboss handily finished off the squad of possessed and the Kommandos set up some heavy move blocks on Alan’s forces.

On Alan’s turn he clawed back, killing the boss and kommandos. Then assaulted some forces on the other end of the table with 2 spawn after showing me what Cypher does to score Behind Enemy Lines. I fight on death in order to drop Abbadon 3 wounds. It was a productive turn but not enough. On my turn Wave 2 cracks in. I cleared out the spawn and Cypher on the other side of the board. I forced Ghaz into Abbadon for another safe 3 wounds. The Lord discordant at 5 wounds lived through the Ghaz-buffed Meganob assault somehow and proceeded to fight them off.

On Alan’s next turn I denied his Master of Possession’s attempt to heal Abaddon (rolling a 10 – clutch), though he used the Alpha Legion trait for Abaddon to fall back and kill a battlewagon. Alan’s reserves come in and they fail to kill any units or steal any objectives. At this point I have too much left and the final wave crashes over the rest of his army. The game is essentially over, granting me a huge win and my first super major victory.

Talking with Alan post game, he just wasn’t expecting how hard and fast Orks hit. This would be the theme of a wondrous Orktober victory.

Result

Goffs Victory – 100 – 64

Benjamin Jurek – Goffs – 1st Place

The List

See the Showdown.

Thoughts

Love to see Orks. This list has plenty of fast-moving and forward-deploying units to contest the middle of the board early, and plenty of Gretchins to hold objectives and try and Get Da Good Bitz. Ben wasn’t expected to win the entire event coming into the final round and so wasn’t featured on the stream table but because he scored 100 VP in the final round ended up finishing first with the battle points tiebreaker.

Matthew Green – Tyranids – 2nd Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Leviathan Warrior Spam.

Thoughts

Two big piles of Tyranid Warriors backed up by a couple blobs of Zoanthropes and Venomthropes. Toss in two Neurothropes, a Flyrant, and some supporting units to taste, and you’ve got yourself a Leviathan list. We’re going to see a lot of this archetype this week (and possibly over the next week or so as the final events that would permit pre-dataslate lists come up).

This particular variation opts for a pair of Harpies, which I hate, mostly because of the awkward way they hold their stupid guns. I’m sure they’re fine on the table, but I can’t help but be reminded of Danny DeVito in It’s Always Sunny.

Rob: The harpies are likely to stick around in post-dataslate Tyranids, but the massive warrior blobs less so. I also hate that we still have to worry about dual harpies lists.

Scott LaFountain – Hive Fleet Leviathan – 3rd Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Leviathan Warrior Spam

Thoughts

More Tyranids! While the core is the same, this variation of the list trades out one pile of Zoanthropes and the Harpies for some Biovores, Carnifexes, and a The Parasite of Mortrex. This is another list likely to see some changes, again possibly dropping some warriors.

Marshall Peterson – Necrons – 4th Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Eternal Expansionists

Thoughts

And now, for a high-performing list that probably will be around for the foreseeable future: Necrons. Sure, Szeras can’t pick up the Silent King’s Menhirs anymore, but those units probably see play even after the dataslate changes. And while the Command Barge might go now that it can’t perform some key actions anymore (so somebody else is going to have to do Ancient Machineries), that probably doesn’t change the overall game plan here, which is to score early and often and just force an opponent to try and stop it.

Where this list differs from the C’Tan-heavy Necron lists is that it’s much more melee-focused, trading out almost all of the scarabs for Skorpekh and Ophidian Destroyers that can do more than be killed when the army hits the middle of the table. The two units of Lychguard are also an uncommon addition, and give the army a great unit for bullying other heavy units off objectives.

The Best of the Rest

There were 14 more players on 4-1 records. They were:

5th – Junior Aflleje – Blood Angels: Death Company and Sanguinary Guard backed up by a Whirlwind to turn off Overwatch on a key unit, plus a Smash Captain on Bike and a Sanguinary Priest to keep things rolling.
6th – Matthew Geyer – Chaos Daemons: Skarbrand, Be’lakor, and a Bloodthirster backed up by Fluxmaster, Bloodletters and Flamers, plus a few Horrors thrown in for fun. Straightforward, but solid.
7th – Jason Kavetsky – Imperial Knights: Freeblades, including an Errant handing out its Bondsman ability like candy, Bastard Hunter Helverins, and a Last of Their Line dual-lightning lock Moirax.
8th – Kyle Parry – Harlequins: A solid outing for Dark Saedath Harlequins, backing up a bunch of mobile shooting boats with a larger Troupe to get stuck in and fight on death, plus a Shadowseer with an extra deny and a “No ObSec Allowed” aura.
9 – Mike McTyre – Blood Angels: No Whirlwind here, but Dante’s shown up with a couple squads of Grav Devastators.
10 – Jason Flanzer – Necrons: Eternal Expansionists, though this list is lighter on Skorpekhs in favor of some Tomb Blades, Wraiths, and a few more Heavy Destroyers.
11 – Sean Nayden – Goffs: Ghazghkull shows up with some Meganobz and a Deff Dread, plus a Proper Killy Beastboss on Squigosaur.
12 – Timothy Bouta – Hive Fleet Leviathan: Another strong showing from the Leviathan Warrior archetype.
13 – Chris Wallace – Tyranids: Even more Leviathan Warriors, going lighter on the various flavors of thrope to sneak in a few more Gargoyles as well.
14 – Jay Eggett – Emperor’s Children: Sonic Blaster-equipped Noise Marines, a big pile of Chosen, and–is that a Predator Annihilator I see?! Absolute king shit.
15 – Stephen Unger – Chaos Daemons: A solid Khorne/Tzeentch list, this time sporting Be’lakor, Skarbrand, Kairos, and more Bloodletters than you can shake an arbitrary number of sticks at.
16 – Andrew Whitehead – Harlequins: Light Saedath gunboats with a few extra characters thrown in for good measure.
17 – Alex Kostiuk – T’au Empire: Farsight Enclaves with two Coldstars, two Crisis bombs, and a nice side of Kroot.
18 – Alan Dehasa – Black Legion: Black Legion Good Stuff with a surprise delivered by way of Terrax-Pattern Termite was enough to carry Alan to the top table.

Malmö Wargaming Weekend VI

81-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Skåne län, SE on October 22 2022. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Andreas Holm – Hive Fleet Leviathan – 1st Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Leviathan Warrior Spam

Final Round Matchup

14-6 victory against Sebastian Larsson – Emperor’s Children.

Thoughts

This is another double-harpy Leviathan list, though the twist here is the Broodlord and unit of Genestealers – something you don’t see often in top Tyranids lists. The Broodlord is a nasty combatant on its own and both it and the Genestealers can forward deploy using the Vanguard Predator rule, giving this Nids list a bit of an extra forward threat and the ability to start on objectives in missions like Recover the Relics. It’s also helpful for blocking out Nurglings and helping keep Necrons off 100 points if you’re going second.

Pedro Chavez – Harlequins – 2nd Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Light Saedath Starweaver Spam.

Thoughts

This weekend was the last big hurrah for Light Saedath Harlequins, though we’ll likely see them continue to style on most armies both with Light and shifting more to Twilight. Not being able to count as stationary inside a Starweaver reduces their strike distance a significant amount but probably just makes fewer games early blowouts and more midgame blowouts, while Twilight armies can play a stronger midtable objective holding game.

Christoph Fiedler – Hive Fleet Leviathan – 3rd Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Leviathan Warrior Spam

Thoughts

Not quite Warrior spam this time, but certainly a respectable potted meat competitor. This list adds in a walking Hive Tyrant, an Exocrine, and a few extra Gargoyles in lieu of throwing in even more Warriors. The Exocrines give the list a heavy ranged punch that’s exceptionally good at taking out large units of terminators and other units commonly used for bullying midtable objectives.

Speaking of Spam, you may know that the stuff is incredibly popular in Hawaii, with Spam musubi (fried spam served over a rice block and wrapped with rice paper) being incredibly popular and Hormel even offering varieties of Spam in Hawaii that you can’t buy anywhere else in the States. What you may not know is that this popularity makes it a popular target of semi-organized retail theft rings, with some retailers going so far as to keep the stuff under lock and key to prevent would-be Spam heists.

One wonders if the restaurant in Monty Python’s “Spam” sketch might have done better business had it been located on Oahu. As it stands, its most lasting impact is probably the introduction of the term “spam” as we use it here, since that term’s origin is popularly attributed to early-internet nerds rapidly posting lines from the sketch in an effort to quickly scroll text on BBS or chat services either to render them unreadable, frighten off newcomers who they didn’t want to join in their conversations, or simply be a pain in the ass.

Stick around. There’s more where that came from.

Johan Norrman – Imperial Knights – 4th Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

House Taranis Calculated Targeting

Thoughts

A somewhat shootier version of the House Taranis lists we’ve seen kicking around, this one brings two Knights Crusader to hand out +1 BS to two of the Helverins. It also adds a few extra dice to the Knight of Mars‘s shooting phase thanks to the inclusion of the Avenger Gatling Cannon rather than a melee weapon, letting it push out a few more mortal wounds with Calculated Targeting.

Emperor’s Children Noise Marines. Credit: Robert “TheChirurgeon” Jones

Sebastian Larsson – Emperor’s Children – 5th Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Emperor’s Children with Abaddon

Thoughts

Fun fact: Emperor’s Children almost got me banned from playing 40k back in high school. I came home from school one afternoon to find my mom sitting in the living room in tears, begging me to take a blister pack she’d bought me containing a Bretonnian Paladin on Pegasus. Turns out she’d gone to the local Games Workshop thinking she’d do something nice for me by buying me a kit to build, and wound up getting an in-depth lore explanation on the nature and history of Slaanesh.

Still not sure what that particular digression had to do with where she could find a box of Chaos Marines for my Black Legion, but I guess when you’re a GW staffer you’ve gotta take the entertainment where you can find it. I’ve still got the paladin, though.

Rob: The Emperor’s Children are on the rise, thanks to having one of the game’s best suites of Stratagems. They can do everything Creations of Bile can do, only with better troops options and a stronger shooting base. Where they struggle a bit more is on the secondary front, and they seldom end up taking Adorn the Canvas Eclectic in games. Similar to other CSM lists, the Terminators give the army a durable unit for holding midtable objectives while the Possessed act as fast forward melee units with ranged support from the army’s three units of Noise Marines.

The Best of the Rest

There were 6 more players on 3-1 records. They were:

6th – Karl Abrahamsson – Genestealer Cults: I have never understood what GSC are up to, and I steadfastly refuse to learn, except that I think Goliath Trucks are very cool, and there’s one in this list. Good job to Karl for an outstanding result with an underperforming book.
7th – Wilhelm Ericsson – Necrons: Eternal Expansionists with a pair of Annihilation Barges, two Doom Scythes to match, and a Nightbringer shard doing Nightbringer Things.
8th – Olof Svensson – Tyranids: This one actually isn’t Hive Fleet Leviathan, instead opting for Jormungandr and splashing a few packs of Hormagaunts, a 26-model pile of Termagants, and a Tervigon to keep the party going.
9th – Christian Olofsson – Emperor’s Children: Emperor’s Children Good Stuff with Abaddon along for the ride. Can’t go wrong with the classics, even if they are very modern classics.
10th – Christian Kolding – Genestealer Cult: This list brings 3 Goliath Rockgrinders, which are even cooler than Goliath Trucks, because they have big rock grinder things on the front. Stay tuned to this space for more Deep Thoughts with John Condit.
11th – Tomas Christensson – Red Corsairs: Heavy chainaxes in Legionary squads, Bikers with relics and chainswords, and a G’holl’ax-toting Master of Executions make for a nasty set of options in a legion that can advance and charge.

The Southampton Brawl – SCS

68-player, 6-round Grand Tournament in West End, England, GB on October 21 2022. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Ben Jones – Ynnari – 1st Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Ynnari with Harlequins

Final Round Matchup

92 – 89 Victory against Stephen Box – Emperor’s Children.

Thoughts

One of the less-endearing running jokes on Goonhammer’s Discord is our ongoing search for the most obnoxious way to improperly pluralize compound nouns. And while “Ds-Cannon” is a pretty strong contender, unfortunately I don’t think it can quite compete with the beautiful abomination that is “Crises Suit.”

Rob: Ynnari have been on the rise in competitive play recently, offering a few interesting tools that allow them to ping-pong around the table with the Yncarne and get +1 to hit and wound with units that already had silly output – specifically, the Harlequin Troupes and Banshee units, which are ready to punish the shit out of any Emperor’s Children units that dare to kill one or two of them in shooting or Overwatch. Going against Emperor’s Children are a particular treat in this case as they let any unit re-roll all hit and wound rolls for 1 CP with The Great Enemy Stratagem.

Emperor's Children Sonic Dreadnought — Emperor’s Children Sonic Dreadnought Credit: That Gobbo

Stephen Box – Emperor’s Children – 2nd Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Emperor’s Children Good Stuff

Thoughts

No Abaddon here, but the list does include Lucius, which is honestly its biggest downside – despite his effectiveness on the table, that model is seriously showing its age. Here’s hoping the next CSM book comes with a new sculpt for this glorious weirdo.

Rob: Lucius is just incredibly efficiently costed, and the only reason we don’t see him more is because Abaddon is getting the pick over him so often. Stephen’s list is interesting in that it goes heavy on mobile shooting with Noise Marines in Rhinos, foregoing Possessed for a nasty mobile shooting base that can still acquit itself well in combat. The Warp Talons are there to act as a nasty deep strike bomb, where they can drop in from deep strike and use Honour the Prince to essentially guarantee a 9″ charge against an unassuming threat.

Armiger Warglaives. Credit: Kevin Genson

Sam Nash – Imperial Knights – 3rd Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

House Taranis Calculated Targeting

Thoughts

Unlike the other takes on Taranis we’ve seen this week, this list uses Revered Paragon to shove both Knight of Mars and Revered Knight on the same Knight Errant, freeing up some room to shove in a couple more Warglaives. And Bastard Hunters Helverins provide reasonably reliable shooting into a variety of targets.

Word Bearers Chaos Cultists - Credit: RichyP — Word Bearers Chaos Cultists – Credit: RichyP

Liam Callebout – Chaos Space Marines – 4th Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Thoughts

Rather than going with Emperor’s Children, Liam’s opted for Word Bearers, which is an interesting choice. Not only does this give the list some extra resilience against mortal wounds, the re-rolls to hit on the charge will usually wind up being more reliable than EC’s combination of ignoring penalties to hit and add a flat +1 with the Icon. It also gives him some flexibility with his marks, letting him bring a Mark of Nurgle and G’holl’ax, the Decayed on his Daemon Prince, which can be a pretty nasty trick. And the Epistle of Lorgar gives the Dark Apostle some more utility with the ability to chant a second prayer including Soultearer Portent.

Add to all of this the Word Bearers’ excellent support for units with the DAEMON keyword, between stratagems like Revered Hosts and the Master of Possessions with a Baleful Icon, and those units of Possessed and Warp Talons can hit pretty hard in a pinch. All in all, a neat alternate take on CSM in a sea of Emperor’s Children.

The Best of the Rest

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

5 – Joshua Cowlard – Orks: Gregbot, my most hated nemesis, recently developed a new feature, in which if you type “!ork” at him he responds with a randomly generated name for an Ork vehicle that does not yet exist. However, he has yet to come anywhere close to the majesty that is the Wazbom Blastajet, which appears twice in this list in what I can only assume is a laser-targeted rebuke of that most detestable robot.
6 – Alun Perkins – Adeptus Custodes: Trajann, an Inquisitor, and a couple of Contemptors-Galatus walk into a bar. I was hoping that by the time I finished typing that setup I’d have come up with a punchline, but, alas.

BreakingsHeads Cup #3 – Berlin

49-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Petershagen/Eggersdorf, Brandenburg, DE on October 22 2022. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Malte Höfs – Chaos Space Marines – 1st Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Emperor’s Children with Decimators

Final Round Matchup

14 – 6 Victory against Manuel “BEL” Wieczorek – Adepta Sororitas.

Thoughts

This Emperor’s Children list swaps out the Daemon Prince and Possessed we see in so many EC builds for a Lord Discordant and a pair of Decimators with soulburner petards.

By the way, a common misconception about “petards” is that they’re some sort of physical thing you could use to lift someone, likely due to how the word “hoist” (from “hoisted by his own petard”) is frequently interpreted in modern English. In actuality, a “petard” is a small bomb used for knocking down walls (essentially the forerunner to what would now be called a breaching charge), and the phrase refers to the Reversal Of Fortune of someone being exploded by their own bomb.

That’s only scratching the surface of Shakespeare’s dedication to his craft, though: “petard” shares a common origin with the French péter, which Google Translate assures me means “to fart.” In other words, when Shakespeare wrote about someone being “hoisted by their own petard,” the image the bard was almost certainly painting for his audience was that the line’s unfortunate target would rip ass so hard they’d be blown away, Looney-Tunes style. It would take another few centuries for the bit to evolve to its modern form, however; Elizabethan practical effects were not yet developed enough to permit Claudius to vanish into the sky with a symbolic twinkle.

Rob: The Decimators here are an interesting choice, and this isn’t their strongest incarnation but with Let the Galaxy Burn they can generate a few extra hits each time they shoot and put out a solid number of mortal wounds to support an army that’s already pretty good at mid-ranged shooting. Here the list also opts for a large number of MSU Noise Marine units over other melee units, opting for ranged skirmish combat over charges.

Blood Angels Sanguinary Guard. Credit: Jack Hunter

Alexander Tepe – Blood Angels – 2nd Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Thoughts

You’ve got to respect a player with dedication to The Bit, and I absolutely adore the commitment to shoving this many jump packs in a list. Rule of 3 stopping you from taking more Sanguinary Guard? Vanguard Vets are right there. Out of Elite slots? Oh look, Assault Marines are Fast Attack. Rad.

Rob: If you’re going to play Blood Angels, you have to commit to hitting your opponent in the mouth early and often, taking advantage of Relentless Assault as one of the army’s best secondary objectives to both put constant pressure on your opponent and score VP doing it. The army has an insane threat range and can absolutely hit you from across the table on turn 1 using a pregame move with jump packs, forcing opponents to deploy defensively to avoid getting trapped in their deployment zone early.

The Best of the Rest

There were 6 more players on 3-1 records. They were:

3rd – Manuel “BEL” Wieczorek – Adepta Sororitas: Celestine leads a fairly balanced Sisters force and a Super-Heavy Aux of Hunters of Beasts Heleverins to the top table in the final round.
4th – Valentin Schefter – Ynnari: Hey, look: a Vyper. And here I thought the Blood of the Phoenix box was just an excuse to get those things out of GW’s warehouse.
5th – Kayu Orellana – Tyranids: Leviathan Warriors, this time with some Raveners backing them up, plus a bio-engineered parking lot with two each of Biovores and Exocrines.
6th – Jannek Lindemann – T’au Empire: Farsight Enclaves with Kroot, but lighter on Crisis Suits than you’d expect to make room for Triptides, 2 Sun Sharks, and a Hammerhead.
7th – Arne Zerndt – Farsight Enclaves: More FSE, this time with a decent helping of Crisis Suits, two teams of Breachers, and 2 Sun Sharks.
8th – Christopher Schade – Thousand Sons: This list packs 3 Rubric squads and 2 bricks of Scarabs backed up by a pile of Flamers and Fateskimmer to put out some serious hurt.

ARDKORE 40K Open

48-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Putrajaya, Wilayah Persekutuan Putrajaya, MY on October 22 2022. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Joe Soon – Tyranids – 1st Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Leviathan Warrior Spam

Final Round Matchup

90 – 55 Victory against koe yao dong – Tyranids.

Thoughts

Rob: Unfortunately we’ve already covered multiple copies of this list in this week’s article so there’s not much to say here. It’s an effective list that’s likely to see some adjustment as big blobs of warriors lose a bit of effectiveness but I won’t be shocked if lists like this just continue to do well until the next dataslate.

Kian Tan – Adepta Sororitas – 2nd Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Valourous Heart Warsuit Spam

Thoughts

Rob: This isn’t really an archetype, in the sense that you won’t see this often at the top of events due to how many vehicles it runs and how fragile it can be against armies with heavier shooting – particularly as Votann start to gain popularity. That said, there are some cool features here, like the 9 paragon warsuits that give the list some nasty hitting power and tons of melta shots. They’re backed up by 8 mortifiers and a Castigator, giving the list some heavy, mobile punch to range around the table with Vahl while the battle sisters sit back and score Sacred Grounds and Defend the Shrine points.

As Valorous Heart this list has extra protection against psykers and mortal wound spam thanks to a 5+ FNP roll against them, and not being able to re-roll wounds against them is a huge plus in the mirror match and against some armies. That said, neither is enough to get them over Tyranids with this build.

The Best of the Rest

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

3rd – Yong Qiang Ong – Necrons: Eternal Expansionists with a Catacomb Command Barge and the Nightbringer backing it up.
4th – koe yao dong – Tyranids: Leviathan Warrior Spam with dual Tyrannofex and a Harpy.
5th – Victor Koh – Adepta Sororitas: Bloody Rose led by Morvenn Vahl and packing a healthy complement of Repentia and Zephyrim make for a potent melee threat, even before you add in the three squads of Retributors with multi-meltas running around to blast away at mid-range.
6th – Guardsman Q – Chaos Daemons: What would be an otherwise-standard Daemons list gets spiced up by the inclusion of some Slaaneshi Daemons, including the Contorted Epitome, some Daemonettes, and a handful of Fiends. Nice to see a touch of excess added to a Daemons roster.
7th – Azmi Shahrul – Ynnari: A nice selection of Aeldari melee units, this time supported by a Hemlock and a Voidraven. Oh, and a couple of Ds-Cannon to spice it up.
8th – Wesley Chan – Adeptus Custodes: Trajann’s back, this time with some more bikers and a few more Allarus Custodians.

Wrap Up

And that’s it for today! We’ve got another five events and a showdown that’ll be coming down the pipe later this week, so keep an eye out for those. Wings will still be out on vacation, so it’ll be another mystery guest host! (Hint: it’s me again, I’m the mystery guest host)

Have any questions or feedback? Drop us a note in the comments below or email us at contact@goonhammer.com.

Competitive Innovations in 9th: October 25, 2022, Part 1: In Which Mistakes Were Made

“Expect to see less lists focussed on the durability of leviathan to eventually push itself into a win, and more lists that leverage a specific aspect of tyranids rather than falling into being good at everything.

-Innes Wilson

Frontline Gaming SoCal Open 2022 40K Champs

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission – Secure Missing Artefacts

Thoughts

Result

Benjamin Jurek – Goffs – 1st Place

The List

Thoughts

Matthew Green – Tyranids – 2nd Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

Scott LaFountain – Hive Fleet Leviathan – 3rd Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

Marshall Peterson – Necrons – 4th Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

The Best of the Rest

Malmö Wargaming Weekend VI

Andreas Holm – Hive Fleet Leviathan – 1st Place

The List

Archetype

Final Round Matchup

Thoughts

Pedro Chavez – Harlequins – 2nd Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

Christoph Fiedler – Hive Fleet Leviathan – 3rd Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

Johan Norrman – Imperial Knights – 4th Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

Sebastian Larsson – Emperor’s Children – 5th Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

The Best of the Rest

The Southampton Brawl – SCS

Ben Jones – Ynnari – 1st Place

The List

Archetype

Final Round Matchup

Thoughts

Stephen Box – Emperor’s Children – 2nd Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

Sam Nash – Imperial Knights – 3rd Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

Liam Callebout – Chaos Space Marines – 4th Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

The Best of the Rest

BreakingsHeads Cup #3 – Berlin

Malte Höfs – Chaos Space Marines – 1st Place

The List

Archetype

Final Round Matchup

Thoughts

Alexander Tepe – Blood Angels – 2nd Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

The Best of the Rest

ARDKORE 40K Open

Joe Soon – Tyranids – 1st Place

The List