…please send Q12023 Balance Dataslate.

In some ways I jest – Arks continues to be good fun, and there are a couple of interesting new builds on show this week, so there’s certainly some stuff to dig into. However, at this point the best builds are agonisingly familiar to your humble correspondents here at the Competitive Innovations penthouse at the Goonhammer offices, and we’re looking forward to a bit of a shakeup.

I say “we” because Lowest of Men is joining me once more as we square up to yet another ten event week (see above re: Arks being good fun), and this week the breakdown is as follows. Today I’m covering:

Firebug Open 2023 (major)
Gameology Pasadena Battle for Los Angeles GT (major)
GT Logroño
Bristol Vanquish
Tabletop Republic presents Warzone: Wycombe 2023

On Friday Lowest of Men will be looking at:

Down Under 40K Major
Fools Errand 2023
Perils of the Geekery
Open War GT
Midgard April

Our showdowns are:

Tyranids vs Adeptus Custodes at Fools Errand
Votann vs Tyranids at GT Logroño
Craftworlds vs Tau at Midgard April
Chaos Knights vs World Eaters at Tabletop Republic

Once more unto the breach.

Firebug Open 2023

154-player, 6-round Grand Tournament in Ettlingen, BW DE on March 31 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Manuel “BEL” Wieczorek – Astra Militarum – 1st Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Whoops all Sentinels

Final Round Matchup

86 – 77 Victory against Florian Schmidt – Iron Hands.

Thoughts

Sentinels – so good that you don’t even need Born Soldiers. This list brutally saturates the board with armoured walkers, and can apply immense pressure out of the gate through forward deploying three units of Scouts and using Maverick Maneouvres to hurl another unit (preferably with Solar’s re-rolls on) up the board. The scary thing about Sentinels in the new book is that with the chainswords they’re at least semi-legitimate in a fight, allowing this list to do quite a bit of lifting in multiple phases, and it’s a rare opponent who is going to be able to chew through the sheer volume of armoured chassis on show here. If they try and play objectives instead, you’ve got a Death Korps marshall riding around ina Chimera making the Sentinels ObSec with Prefectus Orders, and with each unit counting as a cool nine models, that’s tough to beat.

Even the mighty Iron Hands failed the test of carving through this build in the finals, and if anyone still doubted that Sentinels are one of the best units in the Guard book (and by extension, the game), thishopefully puts that to bed. Well done to Manuel on the spectacular win.

Matthias Bellmann – Aeldari – 2nd Place (Undefeated)

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Hail of Doom

Thoughts

Elves getting it done, big fan of that. While my mental pendulum is swinging slightly back towards Ulthwe in an indirect-heavy world, you can’t argue with results, and if you want to take a kill-or-be-killed approach to playing Craftworlds, you cannot to better than Hail. Dire Avengers will annihilate pretty much anything, the big Windrider blob is incredibly obnoxious against anything without indirect fire (merely very good when it does exist, and don’t forget you can Protect them), and you get access to spicy precision units like the Bow Farseer and upgraded Aspects. I also like, given metagame pressures, Matthias’ choice to stack up plenty of early disruption options, notably two units of Shroud Runners and the option to go high pressure with Karandras if the game calls for it (and plenty of CP to whisk him away from a bad roll-off with Phantasm). It’s got tricks, and boy does it have killing power, and it earned Matthias a fabulous undefeated second-place.

Grischa Gerwert – Chaos Daemons – 3rd Place (Undefeated with a Draw)

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Daemon Board Control

Thoughts

A very distinctive list in third, foregoing the normal Monster Mash options in favour of lots of speedy bodies to control the table, and a delightful sting in the tail from the Infernal Enrapturess. She provides a source of Warp Locus that can’t be trivially targetted, and here she can usher large bricks of Fiends straight into battle amidst the enemy, pushing durable and deadly blocks of claws and stingers right into the fray. Even just throwing down a unit of Daemonettes much closer than normal can be a big swing, and now I’ve seen it done I’m honestly slightly surprised I’ve not really seen anyone else trying it. That’s innovation, right there, so congratulations to Grischa.

Florian Schmidt – Iron Hands – 4th Place

Desolation Squad in the scheme of the Rainbow Warriors — Desolation Squad by Craig “MasterSlowPoke” Sniffen

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Shooty Iron Hands

Thoughts

Finally, if you want to make anything except 18 Sentinels extremely dead from bullets, and to nearly manage to take those down, Arks Artisans Iron Hands remain one of the preposterously lethal shooting builds we’ve seen all edition. I like the balance of tools on show here, which provide a good amount of board control and mobility to go with the murder, but the throughline of the army is very much something we’re used to at this point. Well done to Florian on rounding out the top four.

The Best of the Rest

There were 11 more players on 5-1 records. They were:

5th – Fritz Peters – Votann: Ymyr 2Fort.
6th – Simon Fuchs – Astra Militarum: Born Soldiers Goodstuff with a Dorn.
7th – Christian Breuer – Adepta Sororitas & Freeblades: Bloody Rose melee MSUs with shooty backup from Helverins.
8th – Valentin Schefter – Astra Militarum: Born Soldiers Goodstuff with a small Scion Patrol.
9th – Patrick Philipp – Creations of Bile and Daemons: A very cool board control build, using a couple of packed Rhinos, a big blob of Possessed and several units of Screamers to dominate lots of space.
10th – Kevin Zöllinger – Iron Hands: Redemptor and Gladiator Reaper spam with more shooty backup.
11th – Matthias Ehrhardt – Genestealer Cult: Twisted Helix with lots of hulls and lots of scary melee threats, notably two units of Metamorphs and three of Purestrains.
12th – Fred Otto – Astra Militarum: Born Soldiers Goodstuff with a Scion Patrol.
13th – Pascal Haberstroh – Dark Angels: Deathwing and Desolation Squads.
14th – Maik Loga – Tyranids: Behemoth ObSec Monster Mash with a bunch of Screamer Killers.
15th – Cees Jan Stam – Ynnari: Melee MSU Ynnari with a big Court of the Archon as a tarpit (great combo with Shield of Ynnead).

Gameology Pasadena Battle for Los Angeles GT

65-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Pasadena, CA United States on April 01 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Stephen Corrales – Dark Angels – 1st Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Mixed Dark Angels

Final Round Matchup

93 – 90 Victory against Kyle Parry – Ulthwe.

Thoughts

Another firm entry in “lists that need no introduction”, Stephen has at least done me the favour of including one unique unit (an Invader ATV) to speculate about rather than having literally nothing to put here. What is it for? Hurling forward as a throwaway to bully charge enemy indirect with Swift Strike, maybe? Just to bamboozle me, personally? We may never know the Dark Angels never reveal their secrets, after all.

Junior Aflleje – Leagues of Votann – 2nd Place (Undefeated)

Trans-Hyperian Alliance Hekaton Land Fortress. Credit: Colin Ward

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Ymyr Bike/Thunderkin Spam

Thoughts

It’s no mean feat to pull off a build that looks genuinely new from a codex with only twelve datasheets, but Junior has managed that in style, going hard on Thunderkyn alongside plenty of bikes and a nasty character complement. The Ymyr 5+ invulnerable save makes the Thunderkyn pretty sturdy, and between them and the bikes the damage output of the list on a turn it decides to really go for it is massive. Being able to teleport Kahls around the table to drop buffs as needed really helps with that, as the Thunderkyn will often be coming in from reserves, and the use of a Sagitaur squadron with a unit of Hearthkyn helps pack in some decent early objective play without too much commitment to units that don’t fit the main plan. A really unique and interesting build, great to see here!

Ben Jurek – Goffs – 3rd Place

Ork Beastboss on Squigosaur. Credit: Magos Sockbert

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Goff Pressure

Thoughts

Going fast and krumpin’ things is definitely one way of adapting to a shooty meta – can’t shoot you if there’s a choppa in their skull (insert picture of an ork tapping the side of their head knowingly/threateningly here). Kill Rigs provide something that’s sturdy against indirect to hold mid-field objectives in games where you’re up against mortars, and pile on the pressure in those where you’re not, and finishing up with plenty of Grots ensures the army has a great secondary game. Nice work from Ben taking third.

Kyle Parry – Ulthwe – 4th Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Ulthwe…anti-horde pressure maybe?

Thoughts

A very unusual, but clearly effective, build to finish – lots of Windriders, but taking catapults rather than cannons and running as Ulthwe rather than Hail. There’s certainly some appeal to that – Discipline of the Black Guardians combines with their built in re-rolls against targets on objectives to give you the fun of 2s re-rolling 1s to hit, and having a 6+ invulnerable save is pretty valuable for them. The army is also incredibly fast in bringing its damage dealers to bear, and is about the worst nightmare of any sort of horde list. It’s also got quite a few tricks up its sleeve – the option to go hard early with Karandras and the Scorpions, a nasty Mortal Wound-toting Farseer to snipe stuff out, and a very durable backfield utility unit in the big Warlock unit. I imagine this list was pretty white knuckle to play, as if you accidentally lose one of the big units it’s a total disaster, but Kyle took this all the way to the finals and only lost those by three points, so I can’t imagine he made many mistakes!

The Best of the Rest

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

5th – Jensen Goh – Orks: Chunky Goff pressure with Ghaz at the head.
6th – Alan Dehesa – World Eaters: All-rounder World Eaters with Helbruts, Rapier Carriers and a Forgefiend to provide a bit of shooting and Angron as a big hammer blow.
7th – Justin Aguilar – Goffs: Horde Goff pressure.
8th – Luke Ehlert – Tyranids: Shooty big bug ObSec Monster Mash as Jormungandr.
9th – Jason McKenzie – Tau: Bork’an with a big Crisis bomb and a full unit of Broadsides.
10th – TJ Spaeth – Black Templars: Lots of spicy infantry, including two big units of Primaris Crusaders and 3×3 Eradicators.
11th – Cooper Waddell – Genestealer Cult: Industrial infantry horde with big units of both Neophytes and Acolytes.

GT Logroño

32-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Logroño, RI España on April 01 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission – Secure Missing Artefacts

Duque – Greater Thurian League: GTL Goodstuff with an extra dose of Troops instead of a second Fortress.
Army List - Click to Expand

vs.

ParadoX – Tyranids: Gorgon swarm pressure, with autohit backup.
Army List - Click to Expand

Thoughts

Somehow, Tyranids have returned. More seriously, I have heard a few mutterings about people trying Gorgon recently, and here they are bursting onto the scene at speed – literally in the case of the Hormagants. This army works off being very reliable at grinding enemies out – it has to hope it doesn’t run face-first into Knights or hull-heavy Guard, but against almost anything else the fact that everything wounds on a 4+ at worst, and has the option to turbo-charge the Hormagauntswith Hyper-Toxicity if a bit of extra punch is needed (that also working against most vehicles). Tyrants and Tyrannofexes provide some chunkier objective holders (the acid sprays of the latter adding even more reliable damage), and this list ends up pleasingly flexible.

There are a few things it struggles to kill though, and unfortunately a Land Fortress is definitely one of them. You can maybe get lucky with Shardgullet, but nothing else is really going to do it, and a 2+ save with Void Armour means that even going sicko mode with the gaunts will barely leave a scratch. As ever when there’s something super tough to shift in the opponent’s list, I suspect the fallback plan is just to try and brutally murder everything else. There’s going to be a bit of cat-and-mouse going on here, because the bikes excel at sweeping Gaunts, but they’re vulnerable to the various acid-spraying beasties, and if the gaunts slip past them they’re great at picking up the Hearthkyn and non-Einhyr characters.

I suspect both sides end up trying to play pretty cagey (it wouldn’t shock me to see both players take Banners), and when that happens it feels like the Tyranids have a bit of a better shot – they have an easier time playing Primary denial by firing Gaunts at the enemy, and can more plausibly play for Warp Ritual as well. That said, if Votann get to go second then Lay Claim ends up pretty good if both sides play passive, forcing the Tyranids to take swings they might not want to. If the Votann go first I think their job is considerably harder – they probably have to go more aggressive than they really want to, and that creates a lot of failure points against the faster Nid list. Given the game was spectacularly low scoring for what is, usually, one of the highest-scoring missions in the game, I’m going to guess that both sides did a decent job of shutting down enemy secondary plans, but that the particular utility of the Gaunts in a denial-focused game was enough to tilt things towards the Nids.

Result

Tyranids Victory – 65 – 45

ParadoX – Tyranids – 1st Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Gorgon Auto-Pressure

Thoughts

Winning an event with Arks Tyranids is an extreme uphill struggle, so this is a very impressive performance. A lot of what makes this list tick is covered in the Showdown – it’s very good at playing a denial-focused game, and has the reach to go out and bully opponents with the Hormagaunts when needed. It desperately doesn’t want to go second against Mortars (but who does), but has some massive upsides in other popular matchups, being a particular nightmare for some of the Daemon monster-mash builds to handle, where both “sufficient gaunts” and “always wounding on 4+” carves through a lot of their defensive plans. Very spicy, very different, and a great finish for Paradox!

The Best of the Rest

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

2nd – Martin Basozabal – Orks: Hull-heavy Goffs, combining Ghaz with some Kill Rigs, a big DeffKopta unit and some Scrapjets.
3rd – Duque – Votann: See Showdown.
4th – Alfred Phobos – Adeptus Custodes: Solar Watch with a bit Shieldguard unit to use with Sally Forth and a Culexus Assassin tagging on.
5th – Kikko Alpha Strike – Dark Angels: Deathwing/Ravenwing mix.

Bristol Vanguard Presents: Vanquish 2023

30-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in England GB on April 01 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

This event was 1750pts with, apparently, some secret special objectives.

Stuart Brailsford – Asuryani – 1st Place

Eldar Support Weapon - D-Cannon. Credit: Rockfish — Eldar Support Weapon – D-Cannon. Credit: Rockfish

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Hail of Doom, but 12.5% smaller.

Final Round Matchup

79 – 46 Victory against Josh Longden – Greater Thurian League.

Thoughts

You know about Hail of Doom. Kill stuff, with shurikens. As for specifics, I really like the inclusion of Jain Zar in the smaller point size event – she’s a very potent disruption piece, and something you often see in slightly smaller games is people banking on opponents not having an answer for a big death star of some kind. Being able to shut the vast majority of shooting threats down for a turn is thus invaluable, and helps buy the time needed for all those Dire Avengers to do their wicked work. Multiple Phoenix Lords are also likely to be harder to deal with in smaller games simply because some lists might choose to cut, say, a source of Smite to free up some points. A good strategy in general, and a few nice tweaks for the format from Stuart.

The Best of the Rest

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

2nd (Undefeated with a Draw) – Ben Durden – Black Templars: Absurd dreadnought spam, featuring three Redemptors, a Brutalis and a pair of Contemptors, with Grimaldus to babysit.
3rd – Matthew Leak – Astra Militarum: Born Soldiers with a DOOMHAMMER backing it up. Love a big tank.
4th – Paul Moore – Cult Mechanicus: Agripinaa with lots of Ironstriders.

Tabletop Republic presents Warzone: Wycombe 2023

29-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in England United Kingdom on April 01 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

A shout out here – I went to this event, my first time at the venue, and it absolutely rules – definitely keep an eye on their calendar if you’re nearby.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission – Tear Down Their Icons

Liam Worswick – World Eaters: All-rounder World Eaters with Angron and a couple of War Dogs helping out.
Army List - Click to Expand

vs.

Sid Sidhu – Chaos Knights: A mighty assembly of Vextrix dogs, with one very angry Dreadblade Karnivore joining in.
Army List - Click to Expand

Thoughts

Khorne is presumably sitting on his throne with a hollowed skull full of popcorn, because he’s getting a show here. Both these lists work by putting the enemy under immense pressure while scoring Secondaries very reliably, and by threatening immense damage across broad fronts, so who wins when they clash?

The first thing to check is if any part of either side’s plan doesn’t work as well as normal, and the Chaos Knights come out slightly better in that exchange, though it’s marginal. The big deal here is that The Blood God’s Due doesn’t work nearly as well in this game as it normally does, forcing the World Eaters to make a fairly dismal choice of third option after BID and Pile the Skulls. The Knights maybe don’t have a perfect third choice either, to be fair, but can plausibly get away with Grind in a way that the World Eaters probably can’t. There might be an alpha turn where multiple Knights suffer tragic axe-cidents, but that’ll likely be followed by a fairly heavy swing back, especially if the Dreadblades tagging along with the World Eaters get wasted quickly.

It isn’t all bad for the World Eaters though – this definitely feels like a matchup where Angron helps a lot. The event was using big UKTC home ruins, and Angron’s sheer speed means that he can meaningfully threaten quite a bit of the board from inside one, discouraging the Knights from pressing forwards. Having a Dreadclaw to control where some key units set up is powerful too, and avoids too many resources getting owned by guns.

Those things help, and I think if you’re running the World Eaters here, your number one goal is to try and set up a situation where Angron or the big Eightbound units get to flatten two War Dogs in a single turn, so looking for situations where you can lay that bait and pull it off. Unfortunately, that’s the kind of plan that can be played around pretty effectively if an opponent figures it out, and since passive scoring here favours the Knights if battle isn’t fully joined, they can afford to feed out a few Dogs each turn and just grind through the resources they’re up against. Vextrix is particularly nice for that, as their shooting is extra reliable, and being able to switch on Daemonic Fortitude on the Knights that are heading to objectives each turn just further tilts this in their favour – it combines with Unyielding Rage to mean that an incoming unit of Eightbound doesn’t have to spike down that badly to miss a kill, which could genuinely be game ending with the World Eaters already a bit up against it on scoring. I certainly don’t expect this game to end without a lot of War Dogs getting trashed, but eventually the wrath of Khorne will be spent, and that looks to be what played out on the day.

Result

Chaos Knights Victory – 87 – 61

Sid Sidhu – Chaos Knights – 1st Place

War Dog - Karnivore. Credit: Rockfish — War Dog – Karnivore. Credit: Rockfish

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Vextrix Dogs

Thoughts

Covered in the showdown – while I’m a bit Herpetrax fan, Vextrix also has a lot to recommend it, and has some strong applications in the current metagame. Lots of melta with the option of +1 to wound helps you duel with guard tanks, while if Daemonic beasts or World Eaters are coming at you, switching on Fortitude for the Knights at the head of your lance can be backbreaking. Flexibility wins tournaments if you use it well, and that’s just what Sid has done here.

The Best of the Rest

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

2nd – James Marsden – Necrons: Nihilakh with loads of Flayed Ones, a big brick of Lokhusts and the Silent King overseeing it all, plus a Convergence of Dominion as the hot new Behind Enemy Lines /backfield tech.
3rd – Byron Sidhu – Chaos Daemons: Monster Mash with the spicy combo of a Bloodthirster, Be’lakor and Kairos (a great pick right now). Responsible for the tragic death of many of my poor elves in round 5.
4th – Liam Worswick – World Eaters: See showdown
5th – Josh French – Chaos Knights: Herpetrax with the classic Desecrator/Abominant combo.

Wrap Up

That’s it for part 1, check back in on Friday for part two for more Arks action with Tyranids blasting their way into a second showdown as a big highlight.

Competitive Innovations in 9th: Our Metagame Yearns for Freedom pt.1

Firebug Open 2023

Manuel “BEL” Wieczorek – Astra Militarum – 1st Place

The List

Archetype

Final Round Matchup

Thoughts

Matthias Bellmann – Aeldari – 2nd Place (Undefeated)

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

Grischa Gerwert – Chaos Daemons – 3rd Place (Undefeated with a Draw)

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

Florian Schmidt – Iron Hands – 4th Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

The Best of the Rest

Gameology Pasadena Battle for Los Angeles GT

Stephen Corrales – Dark Angels – 1st Place

The List

Archetype

Final Round Matchup

Thoughts

Junior Aflleje – Leagues of Votann – 2nd Place (Undefeated)

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

Ben Jurek – Goffs – 3rd Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

Kyle Parry – Ulthwe – 4th Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

The Best of the Rest

GT Logroño

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission – Secure Missing Artefacts

Thoughts

Result

ParadoX – Tyranids – 1st Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

The Best of the Rest

Bristol Vanguard Presents: Vanquish 2023

Stuart Brailsford – Asuryani – 1st Place

The List

Archetype

Final Round Matchup

Thoughts

The Best of the Rest

Tabletop Republic presents Warzone: Wycombe 2023

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission – Tear Down Their Icons

Thoughts

Result

Sid Sidhu – Chaos Knights – 1st Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

The Best of the Rest

Wrap Up

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