We’ve got some blowout weeks coming up, but for the first time in ages the weekend just past was relatively quiet. In 2022, that means we merely have two majors and two big GTs to look at, but hey, I’ve got Tomb Blades to finish this week, so I’ll take it. Are they the most over-complicated 20pt model out there? Maybe!

This week we’re looking at:

Warzone Houston (major)
Invasion 40K 2022 (major)
Harvester of Souls
Last of the Summer Winehammer

As voted for by the Goonhammer patrons, this week the showdowns we’re looking at are monster-tastic (hence the title). We’ll be covering:

Khorne Daemons vs. Creations of Bile at Harvester of Souls.
Mixed Daemons vs. Freeblade Lance at Last of the Summer Winehammer. Full on giant robots vs. towering monsters. Great stuff.

Will the gallant defenders of humanity push back the denizens of the Warp, or are we looking at an devastating incursion? Let’s find out.

Warzone Houston

107-player, 6-round Grand Tournament in Houston, TX, US on September 17 2022. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Colin McDade – Adepta Sororitas – 1st Place

Sisters of Battle Repentia — Credit: Evan “Felime” Siefring

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Bloody Rose Goodstuff

Final Round Matchup

94 – 72 Victory against Georg Bobkov – Creations of Bile with a Dreadblade War Dog

Thoughts

It’s Bloody Rose goodstuff – we know about Bloody Rose Goodstuff, at this point. Colin’s build here is a particularly go-wide version of it, with lots of small units to dominate the table and ensure it’s extra reliable on Secondaries, but I don’t have much to add beyond that. Congratulations to Colin on the major win.

Jony Velazquez – Chaos Space Marines – 2nd Place

Night Lords Master of Possession – Credit: RichyP

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Creations of Bile

Thoughts

Creations of Bile continue to look like the real deal, with Jony here following up his GT win a few weeks back with second place at this major. The build has changed a little bit (tragically losing Fabius himself in favour of some extra Herohammer from a Discolord) but most of what I said that time stands. Full Possessed bombs are straight up nightmarish out of Creations (and overpower any other CSM army that’s relying on Possessed), and the Terminators being able to Advance/Charge makes it very easy to feed the units out as missiles one at a time. A very strong strategy, rewarded once more with a great finish.

Brett “The Catachan” Urbanowski – Astra Militarum – 3rd Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Gunnery/Spotter All-rounder Guard

Thoughts

Tuned guard lists are, at this point, only a little behind where they need to be rather than miles, and that means that players like Brett (who as his nickname suggests, has something of a preference for the faction) have a shot at picking them up and taking them all the way to the podium. This build throws out so many goddamn shots, excels on Secondaries, and has plenty of units it can afford to feed into a wood chipper to stay ahead on Primary. I like the use of a couple of Chimeras to help set up early positioning, and also think that the third manticore is a good shout – this list just needs all the powerful shots it can get, and when you’ve got two on Full Payload to handle anything needing the flat three damage, there’s bound to be something useful you can point the d3 damage one at. Brett’s only loss was to Sororitas and he scored a somewhat terrifying 90pts in that game, and I really do think most players would have their expectations of what Guard can do rapidly and forcibly recalibrated by playing against this army.

Sweet Lew – Necrons – 4th Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Double C’tan Eternal Expansionists

Thoughts

It plays objectives (both Primary and Secondary) extremely well, C’tan are a hugely challenging speed bump for some lists (Brett’s above, in fact, would be a great example) and the late game power that the Silent King represents is shockingly potent. It’s a great list, and not massively surprising to see in the top four, but it’s fair to say people have gotten a lot better at dealing with it, so congratulations to Sweet on pulling off a great run (only losing to Colin in round 5).

The Best of the Rest

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

5th – Georg Bobkov – Creations of Bile: Big Terminator and Biker unit plus lots of Chosen, and also the more unusual choice of a Dreadblade War Dog on the side, bringing the Tzeentch Mirror of Fates for CP regen.
6th – Dirk Hryekewicz – Astra Militarum: Gunnery Experts/Spotters with max Tank Commanders then a brigade packed with Infantry, and a Scion Battlion off to the side for objective play.
7th – Nick Toomey – Adepta Sororitas: Bloody Rose Goodstuff with big Retributor squads.
8th – Jesse Alatorre – Blood Angels: Go-wide Blood Angels as the main force, then Hunters of Beasts Helverin Freeblades to provide shooty backup.
9th – Justin Moore – Tyranids: Leviathan Goodstuff with lots of Warriors and a pair of Harpies.
10th – Reuben Gariby – Tyranids: Hive Fleet Behemoth with massive numbers of bodies, Raveners and Warriors galore, all able to hit extra hard with Behemoth tricks.
11th – Christian Alessi – Tau: Extremely Commander-heavy Farsight Enclaves, squeezing a massive four of them in.

Invasion 40k 2022

76-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Vest-Agder, NO on September 17 2022. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Kjetil Andre Liknes – Necrons – 1st Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Eternal Expansionists

Final Round Matchup

83 – 79 Victory against Petter Nordhus – Tyranids

Thoughts

…and we’re straight onto another Necron player who isn’t going to let a little thing like the metagame adapting halt their reign of terror. This neatly showcases an alternative to the C’tan plan, which is just to overwhelm the opponent with how much stuff you can pack in. Sending out consecutive Scarab units with an invuln and ObSec is a real challenge for some armies to shift at a bargain price, and a mighty three units of melee Destroyers wait in the wings to pick off anything that overcommits. Also featuring is a full unit of Lokhusts with Reanimator and Technomancer support, allowing them to take at least some risks in lining up shots, representing yet another way to obliterate the enemy. Add in a few cheap, fast bait units, and you have a prime example of why Necrons are still able to hang with the best right now.

Sveinung Nøding – Hive Fleet Leviathan – 2nd Place (Undefeated)

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Leviathan Goodstuff

Thoughts

Speaking of hanging with the best – this army is even entitled “Warrior Harpies” at the top of the list and yup – that’s the one! The Tyrannofex and the Hormagant squad are the two main things that stand out as slightly unusual, with the former presumably there to help with armies like Knights that might be able to bully the Warriors off objectives, and the latter being a pretty reliable way to flip an objective in emergency thanks to their sheer speed. Otherwise – Leviathan doing Leviathan things, with Sveinung taking them to a cool 5-0.

Adam Keith Solumsmo – T’au Empire – 3rd Place (Undefeated)

XV8 Crisis Battlesuit Team. Credit: Rockfish

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Farsight Enclaves

Thoughts

It’s not complicated, but it is terrifying. Very few things in the game are going to stand up to multiple turns of being shot by this list, so defeating it requires either very high speed to try and run it down, complete objective dominance, or a way to remove one of the big Crisis Teams at range. That last one is a tall order, since presumably one is starting in the air (as the list will have 3CP banked by turn 2 for the sweet, sweet Drop Zone Clear) and the other can be redeployed with Master of Kauyon, so the attack surface is going to be tough to get a grip on. It does mean you have a lot of eggs in relatively few baskets and not that many other pawns to play with, so the list isn’t going to be particularly forgiving of mistakes, but given Adam took the last podium slot with an undefeated run, I am forced to assume he didn’t make any.

Eirik – Cult Mechanicus – 4th Place

Ironstrider Ballistarius. Credit: Rockfish

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Agripinaa Veteran Cohort

Thoughts

A doubly rare sight in fourth here, both a rare army in AdMech and one of the least common subfactions from it. As is usually the case when a put-upon faction manages to break through to a good finish, this build is very skewed – you’ve got a decent set of the Veteran Cohort stalwarts (Ruststalkers and big Ranger units mostly) then 800 entire points worth of Ironstriders to rampage around the field blowing stuff to bits until made to stop. Running as Agripinaa rather than one of the more usual choices throws in some unique curveballs when opponents try for that “make it stop” thing – being able to Set/Hold Steady in the open is going to make charging either the Ironstriders or Rangers extra terrifying (or the Temporcopia Ruststalkers too), and Verse of Vengeance can squeeze extra value from the latter on a turn they commit to the open.

Ramping up some extra AP (from the Forge World Dogma) is good, too – AdMech have been one of the biggest losers from the advent of Armour of Contempt, as they’re very reliant on mid-AP Firepower to do their heavy lifting. Having the option of closing in to boost that is certainly useful, and while I’m not certain I’d pick Agripinaa over Mars even with that, this is a very impressive result from Eirik, and certainly something to think about!

The Best of the Rest

There were 10 more players on 4-1 records. They were:

5th – Petter Nordbus – Tyranids: Leviathan Goodstuff with lots of Warriors and two Harpies.
6th – Rasmus Valand Fredriksen – Tau: Farsight Enclaves with three massive Crisis squads.
7th – Sondre Skår – Creations of Bile: Terminators, Possessed and Warp Talons, plus nasty Characters.
8th – Jonathan Arkin – Adeptus Custodes: Shadowkeepers with Bikes and a Caladius tank, also a nasty Lockwarden Blade Champion.
9th – Eirik Kristoffersen – Adepta Sororitas: Bloody Rose Goodstuff with fewer Characters than normal to free points for extra Troops and some Warsuits.
10th – Espen Roligheten – Tyranids: More Leviathan Warrior goodness, this time with some deep strike shenanigans from a Tyrannocyte and Mawloc.
11th – Are Verlo – Chaos Daemons: Pure Slaanesh Daemons with lots of powerful characters (including Shalxi and a second Keeper) and a tonne of Seeker cavalry.
12th – Ståle Max Kristoffersen – Dark Angels: Deathwing tarpit fun with a few Ravenwing Inner Circle utility characters snuck in.
13th – Kasper Walle – Tau: Farsight Enclaves with big Crisis Teams.
14th – Steven O’Neil – Chaos: Dogwalker as House Vextrix.

The Harvester Of Souls

54-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Spokane, WA, United States on September 17 2022. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission – Recover the Relics

Vincent Weibert – Khorne: Brutal Khorne Daemons centred around a trio of big nasties – Skarbrand, an Unstoppable Onslaught Exalted Bloodthirster, and Be’lakor.
Army List - Click to Expand

vs.

Zak Nelson – Chaos Space Marines: Creations of Bile with a big Terminator block and Abaddon
Army List - Click to Expand

Thoughts

Oh yeah, that’s the good stuff. Pure Khorne Daemons just busting out of the Warp, Skarbrand in tow, and absolutely going to town on whatever stands in their way. Bluntly, all three of the big threats in this build are something that almost nothing in the game wants to be in a fight with, and all of them die pretty hard – Be’lakor has his nonsense going on, and the two Bloodthirsters being T8 means that they’re not vulnerable to, say, getting chipped down by lots of re-rolling bolter shots from a big Terminator unit. As an example, just picking a hypothetical out of the air. Yes they can pop Veterans of the Long War if they want, but it’s a lot of CP, and only pushing the wounds to 5s rather than 4s is a world of difference – the CSM here would dearly like to be able to just chip 5-6 wounds off a Bloodthirster each turn without needing to invest, but that’s going to be expensive if they want it, and pratically ensures that the Daemons are going to get to join battle mostly unscathed, which is of course just how they like it. Can anything survive a full-on Khorne Daemon assault?

Creations of Bile are definitely one of the armies that can give it a hell of a go. The Khorne list here is extremely scary, but it has a lot of power bundled into those three big models, and on a six-objective mission like Recover the Relics, starting to lose footprint can get very ugly very quickly. That’s not helped by the fact that the Bloodletters are very hard to use here – unless you can get them into one of the Characters or the Cultists, most anything else in the list can have a good go at taking them down with them, and they’re also vulnerable to being gunned down by the Terminators if they come out into the open. Potentially tricky – but it doesn’t get away from the fact that if the Marine forces can’t repel the big hitters, it probably won’t matter, especially because if they fail the Daemon Secondary plan looks pretty great here from Banners, Reality Rebels and maybe Warp Ritual from Be’lakor as a final pick. If the big beasts carve through a bunch of units that’s great for the Mission Primary too, where the Khorne side is probably keeping its killable stuff back at least to start with.

Tragically, however, while I’d expect the big Daemons to get a good rampage going I think the CSM probably can drop at least two of them, which if combined with pushing Bloodletters off the Daemon home objectives will be enough to get it done. There’s a fair bit of Rock/Paper/Scissors going on between the threats on each side, but because the CSM just have more stuff and can do more chip damage, they can probably build up advantages over time, and the Warp Talons are also a very nasty spoiler for everything except the Indomitable Bloodthirster – high volume S5 attacks with wound re-rolls are pretty much the exact tool you want to try and take out Be’lakor or Skarbrand, and the latter’s aura is bluntly a huge liability here. The Terminators can also do a decent job of tarpitting Be’lakor if allowed, as between the Black Rune and Monstrous Visages they can drop his expected output to only three or so a turn, and do appreciable damage in response. Even Skarbrand ends up surprisingly medicore into them once you factor in -1 to Hit, -1 to Wound and the fact that they still get a 5+ save from their armour despite him bypassing their invulns. Argrath is the real threat to them, as a sweep with D3 attacks that ignore hit and wound penalties threatens to body half of the unit, and the retaliation will be limited.

It feels like getting that Bloodthirster slammed into the Terminators while as healthy as possible is the absolute priority here, and might give the Daemons a route to victory, but even then the fact that the Bile side just has more tricks packed in starts to tell – the G’holl’ax Daemon Prince is a deeply scary threat for the Bloodthirster if it gets the jump on it in a multi-charge. Thanks to Fight on Death the Bile side can choose to fight with something else first, then swing with the Daemon Prince even if the Bloodthirster interrupts and kills it, pushing maybe six damage past the wound cap, and stopping the rampage a turn earlier than the Daemons can afford.

I think that ends up being the story here – the Daemons can start very strong on scoring and aggro, but I think there’s just a few too many ways things can go wrong for them, and the wider toolset the Creations side has means it’ll be difficult to go the distance, something that the score seems to broadly reflect.

Result

Creations of Bile Victory – 95 – 72

Zak Nelson – Chaos Space Marines – 1st Place

The List

See Showdown

Archetype

Creations of Bile

Thoughts

Fight on Death army wide is one of the best possible things to have access to in this metagame, and every week makes it look more and more like Creations are just faster, stronger and better than whatever else the Chaos Legions can muster. Taking down such a scary melee army in the finals is a serious testament to just what they can do, and well done to Zak for the win.

Kriston Broxson – T’au Empire – 2nd Place (Undefeated)

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Farsight Enclaves

Thoughts

Broadsides huh? Tau are definitely having an experimental phase right now – Riptides, Sun Sharks, and now full Broadside squads in Farsight Enclaves. I guess the thing about Broadsides is that they’re very durable for their cost, so while you presumably want them to be staying at a distance, if you have to run them into the mid board they’re not going to just instantly fold, and as Farsight they represent a copious amount of punishment to anything that gets too close to them (or decides to fight them in melee and doesn’t land a kill). That’s also true, of course, of the big Crisis unit, which via Drop Zone Clear provides the level of Dakka to just smoke something like a Tyranid Warrior stack outright, and soak up a pretty big punch in return. This is another list that has its value very concentrated, and thus needs to be played with exacting care, but once again the results don’t like, making it a second 5-0 for the Enclaves this week.

The Best of the Rest

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

3rd – Donald Plummer – T’au Empire: Heavy-duty Farsight Enclaves Alpha Strike featuring two Riptides alongside the usual Sun Sharks and Hammerheads.
4th – Vincent Weibert – Khorne: See Showdown.
5th – Riley Davis – Thousand Sons: Supreme psychic mastery here, as a Duplicity Battalion with one big Terminator squad and lots of Rubricae is backed up by a Lord of Change in a Daemon Patrol.
6th – Jaden Iwaasa – Chaos Knights: Herpetrax with a buffed-up Abominant and Desecrator and lots of War Dogs in tow.
7th – Aaron Couture – Adepta Sororitas: Bloody Rose Goodstuff with some Ecclesiarchy units like Penitent Engines and Arco-flagellants to provide some mixed melee output.
8th – Matthew Hunt – Adeptus Custodes: Dread Host with a big Venetari unit and lots of Dreadnoughts, including an all-melee Eternal Penitent Telemon.
9th – John Rohde – Necrons: Eternal Expansionists with a pair of Ghost Arks and a big block of Lychguard. Pretty crunchy looking compared to the stock builds.

Last Of The Summer Winehammer 3

48-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Thongsbridge, England, GB on September 17 2022. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission – Tide of Conviction

Matt Robertson – Imperial Knights: Freeblade Lance with a Herald Paladin as the one big Knight.
Army List - Click to Expand

vs.

Isaac Wright – Chaos Daemons: Big monsters abound once more, but this time it’s a Keeper of Secrets joining Be’lakor and the Indomitable Bloodthirster, and a bunch of Flamers and Daemonettes backing them up.
Army List - Click to Expand

Thoughts

It’s another gigantic throwdown here, and one that the mission makes pretty interesting. On killing power alone, this feels like a game that the Knights can win – the targets they’re going after are certainly not soft, but there are a lot of big melta shots here, and really only a few need to punch through to seriously hurt the big Daemons. The Hunters of Beasts Helverins are also fantastic here, somewhat scary even to Be’lakor. Finally, once battle is joined, the Noble Combatants Warglaives are pretty concerning – get ganked by a couple of these with Pack Tactics up and it’s going to be a bad time for the Daemons. There’s also quite a few things in the Daemon list that don’t really do their job to the full here – the Flamers won’t do much damage, and the Exalted Flamer doesn’t push them over a break point, and the relic on the Keeper of Secrets is basically a dud.

So far, so not great, but it’s not entirely doom and gloom. First up, unlike in the previous showdown, taking out any Armiger that strays too close to Be’lakor or the Bloodthirster is just good, clean fun, no questions asked. Secondly, the tables at this event had some fairly big LOS blocking ruins, enough for the Daemons to actually hide from the Helveins some of the time. Finally, and probably most importantly, it feels like passive scoring can help the Daemons here – since the Flamers aren’t going to be damage dealers, they can instead focus on Reality Rebels and an Action Secondary (Despoilers of Reality was what got picked as it’s a trivial 8, there’s a stream from Hellstorm Wargaming here), and they can pull off a Psychic option with impunity. Knights have some good options too, but they ask a bit more of them, so the Daemons might be able to play to pick Warglaives off as they move forward, stay ahead on the Secondaries, and try to avoid getting too overwhelmed on the primary.

The issue that runs into is that they don’t have quite enough stuff, and the Primary is hard work for them. While they can definitely erase any Knights foolish enough to come forward, the big monsters can’t really afford to run amock on the Knight side of the table, and will struggle to flip objectives even if they do, so both the hold 2/3 Primary and the mission Primary are very much in the Knight’s favour, and the end-game scoring component is also more likely to help them. Robbo also made the strong pick of Honour of the House, which while it has a 13pt cap, is a very reliable clip up towards 10VP+ in this game, offsetting the Daemons passive scoring. From a glance at the scores on the stream, that plus the Primary advantage was enough to seal it for the Knights, with the latter being key- the Daemons put in a very strong attempt and scored well on their Secondaries, but couldn’t overcome the Primary deficit, and got gradually taken off the table.

Result

Imperial Knights Victory – 86 – 72

Matt Robertson – Imperial Knights – 1st Place

Imperial Knight Paladin. Credit: Jack Hunter

The List

See Showdown

Archetype

Freeblade Lance

Thoughts

Maximum chivalry, once again. Freeblade Lance is another build that’s going from strength to strength at the moment, usually with either a Paladin (as here) or Errant in command to hand out spicy buffs. Herald Paladin with the Helm gives plenty of flexibility on how you use it (as seen in the final where it hung back for a lot of the game), and this list rocks – well done to Matt on winning with it.

Ben Hampshire – Chaos Knights – 2nd Place

A war dog stalker — Credit: Ben Hampshire

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Daemon Dogwalker Deluxe

Thoughts

After Ben’s spectacular performance at the Leeds GT, they return with an updated spin on the Dogwalker plan that incorporates even more Agents of Chaos. Adding in some Daemons gives the list the option of playing a Psychic Secondary with the Changecaster (a very real prospect given how well the army pushes the opponent back), a unit to park/Deep Strike onto an objective that’s pretty resilient to shooting (and can’t be one-shot by a high roll), and a unit of Flamers who are great at emerging from the warp and hosing down some targets the Knights may not have an efficient answer for. All very cool, and also not eating as much resources as you’d expect, as the Patrol becomes free thanks to Abaddon being in a Supreme Command! Do go and take a look at Ben’s tournament report if you want some more insight into how the Dogwalker plan plays, but fundamentally even five Dogs and Abaddon is a scary forward contingent, and having extra adaptability backing it seems powerful.

The Best of the Rest

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

3rd – Isaac Wright – Chaos Daemons: See showdown.
4th – Kyle Grundy – T’au Empire: Tau Sept Double Sun Shark and Triptide. Triptide is inevitable. Triptide is eternal.
5th – Courtney Rhodes – Orks: Goff Pressure with Ghaz, Kill Rigs, and some Scrapjets for a bit of dakka.
6th – Chris Taylor – Necrons: Eternal Expansionists with good shooting from a large Lokhust unit and a huge Tomb Blade block.
7th – Jake Wilstrop – Thousand Sons: Two Duplicity Scarab Occult units not enough? Add a third (admittedly smaller) one!
8th – Ricci Lowe – Thousand Sons: Another mixup option for Thousand Sons – Cult of Time with lots of Rubricae and Abaddon in charge.
9th – Stephen Platten – Death Guard: Inexorable with loads of Plague Marines and a pair of VolCons.

Wrap Up

A good week for some unusual builds – will Daemons make even bigger breakthrought next week? Make sure to come back and find out. Comments, questions and suggestions to contact@goonhammer.com.

Competitive Innovations in 9th: Segmentum Pacificus Rim

Warzone Houston

Colin McDade – Adepta Sororitas – 1st Place

The List

Archetype

Final Round Matchup

Thoughts

Jony Velazquez – Chaos Space Marines – 2nd Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

Brett “The Catachan” Urbanowski – Astra Militarum – 3rd Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

Sweet Lew – Necrons – 4th Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

The Best of the Rest

Invasion 40k 2022

Kjetil Andre Liknes – Necrons – 1st Place

The List

Archetype

Final Round Matchup

Thoughts

Sveinung Nøding – Hive Fleet Leviathan – 2nd Place (Undefeated)

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

Adam Keith Solumsmo – T’au Empire – 3rd Place (Undefeated)

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

Eirik – Cult Mechanicus – 4th Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

The Best of the Rest

The Harvester Of Souls

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission – Recover the Relics

Thoughts

Result

Zak Nelson – Chaos Space Marines – 1st Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

Kriston Broxson – T’au Empire – 2nd Place (Undefeated)

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

The Best of the Rest

Last Of The Summer Winehammer 3

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission – Tide of Conviction

Thoughts

Result

Matt Robertson – Imperial Knights – 1st Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

Ben Hampshire – Chaos Knights – 2nd Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

The Best of the Rest

Wrap Up

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