Hello again, and welcome back to more of my incredibly helpful thoughts on the state of the 40k meta. Wings is technically back from vacation, but I have performed the requisite incantations and warding to prevent him from taking this back from me until next week, a decision I am fast coming to regret.

If you weren’t here for Vol. I of my Greatest Hits Collection, then take a trip back in time to Wednesday by checking out Part 1 of this week’s Competitive Innovations here. If you’ve already read that and for some unknowable reason are left wanting more, well, I suppose there’s no accounting for taste. Thankfully, I’ve got Jon Kilcullen around this time to add some competitive insights.

We’ve got five more events to go over today:

• Come the Apocalypse GT 2022
• Montréal Major Open
• Dragon Fall 2022 40K Championship GT
• RedFoxGT#1
• Queen City Orktoberfest

This article’s showdown (and our second for the week) will be Daemons vs. Ultramarines at the Queen City Orktoberfest.

Let’s get into it.

Come the Apocalypse GT 2022

40-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Dothan, AL, US on October 22 2022. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Jayce Ackerman – T’au Sept – 1st Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Jon K: Pray for light terrain.

Final Round Matchup

88 – 55 Victory against Stephen Mitchell – Black Legion.

Thoughts

Lots of Crises Suit backed up by Triptide and three Hammerheads, and even the lone infantry unit, an Ethereal, has the good sense to ride around on a hover drone.

However, when I read this list, the first thing I zeroed in on was the Coldstar Commander with Precision of the Hunter, which gives it full re-rolls to hit and to wound. The reason I was locked on this trait wasn’t because it’s unusual or anything (it’s one of the better ones in the book and a fairly common choice), but rather because of fond memories from the Crusade weekend we played back in March the same weekend as Adepticon. You see, Greg had brought his T’au, complete with a triple missile-pod Enforcer Commander with Precision of the Hunter.

Then came the team game. Greg’s team squared off against Pendulin (Custodes) and me (Torchbearers). We spent the entire game hiding anything not wearing Auramite from that Commander, and by the end of the evening I’m pretty sure “The Emperor’s Auspice” was engraved indelibly on the area of Greg’s brain responsible for his fight-or-flight response. Good times.

The Best of the Rest

There were 6 players on 2-1 records. They were:

• 2nd – Daniel Hesters – Leagues of Votann: A Votann list that actually doesn’t bring any Land Fortresses. Unfortunately, if you’re looking for inspiration for your own list, this one won’t be helpful as it isn’t tournament-legal – it takes a pair of Ambulls, which don’t currently have points in the Munitorum Field Manual.
• 3rd – Stephen Mitchell – Black Legion: Black Legion anchored by Abaddon and a Black Rune Terminator brick, and our second list of the week with two soulburner Decimators.
• 4th – Thomas Byrd – Ultramarines: Ultramarines Herohammer with seven characters (four of which are named) and two squads of Victrix Guard backed up by some Eradicators and Assault Hellblasters. Jon K: This list kicks off what appears to be a resurgence of blue marines. More to come below.
• 5th – Jeff Cole – Emperor’s Children: James Workshop: if you’re reading this, bring back Sonic Dreadnoughts, please and thank you.
• 6th – Steven Tosky – Khorne Daemons: Back when Blunderdome was happening, Liam tricked me into playing the Chaos Cultist list one week, and it wound up being the game into Skarbrand and a bunch of Bloodcrushers. I will never forgive him, though I did get to kill Skarbrand with a cultist in melee.
• 7th – Noah Neundorfer – Genestealer Cults: This list brings seventy Neophytes. That’s as many as seven tens. And that’s wonderful. Jon K: Myriad cult with only a single Goliath truck. Not the way I would build my GSC but clearly it worked for him. GSC is one of those forces that can be devastating to play against or the player can just fail a 5 inch charge and lose the game, which will happen eventually. The inherent problem with GSC is their reliability going into 5+ round events and the amount of brain power it takes to pilot it through that many rounds. It can be infuriating to be using every braincell you ever will possess, sweating your ass off to score your secondaries, while meanwhile the Necron player across from you is playing TFT on his phone, 8 4lokos in, scoring 93 on the low end.

Montréal Major Open

30-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Montreal, Quebec, CA on October 22 2022. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

François Lalonde – Tyranids – 1st Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Leviathan Warrior Spam

Final Round Matchup

20 – 0 Victory against Bruno Choquette – Aeldari.

Thoughts

While we’re not certain that this is, as François has titled the list, truly the “Last Ride of Leviathan” (see Innes’s thoughts at the top of Wednesday’s article for more), if it is, going out on top is a hell of a send-off.

Jon K: There really is not much to say at this point about Levi nids, almost no one is sad to see the nerfs but great job to the Canhammer team for rolling into Quebec and stealing all their trophies and ITC points. Someone had to do it. The rest of Canada thanks you for your service.

The Best of the Rest

There were 3 more players on 2-1 records. They were:

• 2nd – Will Paul – Orks: The only thing cooler than a Speed Mob is a Freebooterz Speed Mob. Hats off to Will on an excellent showing.
• 3rd – CHRIS HANES – Adepta Sororitas: Bloody Rose with a healthy complement of Nundams, which I totally understand – they’re Cool Robots, and are in fact the only Sororitas models I own other than Morvenn Vahl, because she is also in a Cool Robot.  Jon K: Sisters have some of the easiest secondaries in the game, combined with miracle dice and extremely dangerous missile units this faction is just built to play the game at the highest of levels. It is shocking they did not get hit with the bat during the dataslate, but then again the slate reeks of ‘OH SHIT MY ASSIGNMENT IS DUE IN 10 MINUTES’ levels of thought so it is not surprising.
• 4th – Jeremy Atkinson – Imperial Knights: Jon K: Speaking of cool robots, I don’t care. I have deeper questions for my countrymen, where are the Ravenwing? While 4th place is great I can’t help but look at Jeremy and think “you deserve this” for leaving the dark angels on the shelf.

Dragon Fall 2022 40K Championship GT

30-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, US on October 22 2022. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Kevin Leonard – Chaos Daemons – 1st Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

I go fast and burn everything

Final Round Matchup

94 – 85 Victory against Zach Lambe – Ravenwing.

Thoughts

Jon K: Finally something to care about: Pure Tzeentch.  This list is built to get out on the board project maximum threat through movement and moderately dangerous flamers.  Nothing on its own is really that crazy but when you put enough of it together and hit the critical mass the list comes online.  I like it, it can be good in every single phase; it is strong into shooting lists giving it the chance to get up in your face and burn you down.  Congratulations sir, hope to see more from you in the future.

The Best of the Rest

There were 3 more players on 2-1 records. They were:

• 2nd – James R Fisher – Blood Angels: Jon K: Mephiston? Hammerstrikes?? This guy just said SEND IT. This is not exactly what I would refer to as a tuned list, but you cannot argue with results. His only loss was to the winner of the event, which is actually kind of surprising as I would think a blood angels list actually matches up well here since their secondaries are going to score them 30-35 on the low side (would be much higher if he did not have mephiston). Data-scry being the mission makes it a very volatile game for the angels however. Both armies move extremely fast but both armies have trouble enduring on objectives in the open. I would be very curious to know how this matchup played out. If you are reading this, James, please let us know.
• 3rd – Thomas Beyer-Bowden – Adeptus Custodes: Trajann and two Shield-Captains backed up by a few Forge World Contemptors, with some Custodians, Sagittarum, and bikes to round it out.
• 4th – Cal Radulescu – Drukhari: 60 Coven of Twelve Wracks with Hexrifles and Ossefactors can shoot and still take actions, and we’ve already seen how good Troupes of Twilight Players can be.

RedFoxGT#1

28-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Biebertal, HE, DE on October 22 2022. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Maik Schierbaum – Imperial Knights – 1st Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Final Round Matchup

15 – 5 Victory against Dennis Boss – Chaos Space Marines.

Thoughts

Rather than going Taranis to really go nuts with Calculated Targeting, this list leans into a high shot-count build which goes nicely with House Krast’s ability to automatically wound on 6s to hit with Cold Fury. There’s also an Inquisitor in there who can snag a few CP with Mental Interrogation, as well as opening up a few other avenues for scoring.

The Best of the Rest

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

• 2nd – Dennis Rau – Ynnari: Dennis actually ran into the first-place list in round 4, resulting in a draw – both finished 4-0-1. Jon K: Dennis did so with a solid Ynnari list that plays the mini game of ‘Can I do 150 mortals per game?’ This style of list has basically a 0 margin for error, misplay Yncarne and they are gone, along with your hopes of a win. Definitely one of the big brain lists that require a lot of practice and thought before, during, and after every phase.
• 3rd – Pierre Sinke – Harlequins: So after yesterday, I got curious where the word “Harlequin” came from. I knew that it was a masked “stock” character in Italian comedy productions, and learned yesterday that the name likely comes from somewhere in France. However, what I didn’t know was that the “Harlequin” character was introduced to England by way of the Harlequinade, a genre of pantomime. That’s right, friends: the chosen of Cegorach are doing battle by way of panto production, a revelation which not only gives new meaning to the term “culture war,” but stands as the most compelling argument I’m aware of for their wholesale removal from the game.
• 4th – Dennis Boss – Chaos Space Marines: Word Bearers, this time with no Terminators, but a 10-model brick of Possessed with the Black Rune of Damnation. Jon K: Get your results in before those guardsmen remind everyone of how angry they are about Cadia.

Queen City Orktoberfest

28-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Springfield, Missouri, US on October 22 2022. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission – Abandoned Sanctuaries

Brent Simon – Chaos Daemons:
Army List - Click to Expand

vs.

Howard Watts – Ultramarines:
Army List - Click to Expand

Thoughts

Daemons are a tough enough matchup for Ultramarines, but things only get worse for Howard on Abandoned Sanctuaries (Jon K: Great mission design, totally balanced. Was it tested 6 times?), where his Phobos-heavy force has to stay put entirely in his DZ out of the gate. He’s still got plenty of beef in the form of those four Dreads to scrap over the middle objective, but a scrap over the middle isn’t anything the Daemons are likely to be upset about being pushed into.

Result

Chaos Daemons Victory – 87 – 81

Brent Simon – Chaos Daemons – 1st Place

The List

See Showdown

Archetype

Khorne/Tzeentch Daemons

Final Round Matchup

87 – 81 Victory against Howard Watts – Ultramarines.

Thoughts

Jon K: Brent brings a list built to compete in every phase which gives him tools to take on almost every list – especially the poor Ultramarines.  The Tzeench side of this list would really be annoying to remove for the marines, and if I had to guess the Flamers were used to blow up those infiltrators to open up spaces for teleporting bloodletters to 3d6 charge.  Howard is here to tell you all to listen to GW: it’s not marines that suck, it’s you. He nearly took it the distance and won an event with the brave people in blue. I am kind of surprised this game was as close as it was: I would assume the daemons list would run away with this by constantly missiling ‘letters at him, but this is a top table game and anything can happen.

The Best of the Rest

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

• 2nd – Peyton Preece – Harlequins: I’m still stuck on the panto thing, and likely will be for quite some time. Those Grand Performances you’re setting up in the crusade rules? Panto, with guns. Which, now that I think of it, might actually be the only way I’d actually voluntarily watch one of the things. Jon K: If Condit is done here I will try to care about quins for 1 minute: Light quins troupe spam with boats everywhere adding 3 jesters into the mix. Just all the good stuff that we have seen quite a bit of by this point. The only loss Peyton had came at the hands of the winner in round 2.  This just in: Flamers hurt quins.
• 3rd – Howard Watts – Ultramarines: Guilliman, Tigurius, and a pile of Dreads make for a solid core to an otherwise Phobos-heavy force.
• 4th – Mycroft Holmes – Orks: This list brings a lot of the same units that Ben Jurek used to win the SoCal Open, but opts for Snakebites over Goffs. This helps a bit with durability, but also makes the Squighog Boyz and Beastboss that much scarier on the charge.
• 5th – Devin King – Adeptus Astartes: Ultramarines again, but with a wider variety of infantry units in lieu of the four Dreadnoughts.
• 6th – Eli Harvey – T’au Empire: FSE with a pair of Broadsides, some Kroot for cheap infantry, and a squad of Vespid hopping around.

Wrap-up

Well, that’s it for my ill-advised ventures into competitive 40k commentary. Wings will probably be back next week, and hopefully by then we’ll have an entirely new meta for him to comment on!