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Competitive Innovations in 9th: Start Wearing Purple pt.2

By James "One_Wing" Grover, Peter "The Falcon" Colosimo and Lowest of Men

Due to ongoing Genestealer Cult activities and the instability unleashed by flagrant misuse of democracy, we’ve got a few changes of plans today – but from the point of view of our beloved readers they’re all good. Life got in the way of Curie being able to participate this week, but the Falcon has once more swooped to the rescue to take his place. We’ve also got an event added to the roster (missed the first time due to an administrative error) – Cagbash, whose undefeated players were so worried about not being on the list the first time that they’ve pretty much entirely done my job for me, providing some great insights into their games and armies. Big thanks to them, and I’m definitely not noting that down as a strategy for the future.

Today, we’ll be looking at:

  • Clutch City Open (major), which Tom will be covering.
  • Barrie Bash (major), starring the illustrious and resplendent Falcon.
  • Cagbash
  • Corsair Open
  • Norsehammer

If you’re looking for any of the following events, go check out Wednesday’s column:

  • Games of Westeros XIV (major)
  • Midtcon (major)
  • Dicehammer Open (major)
  • Iberian Ham Tournament

Clutch City GT 2023

131-player, 6-round Grand Tournament in Houston, TX US on March 04 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

As chief Genestealer understander, Tom is taking the main bits here.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission – Tear Down Their Icons

Kit Smith Hanna – Chaos Daemons: A powerful board control spin on Daemons with lots of fast threats and bodies, plus Skull Cannons to hold the home objective.
Army List - Click to Expand

vs.

Nicholas Rose – Genestealer Cult: Body-heavy cult that goes the Pauper Princes route for extra durability.
Army List - Click to Expand

Thoughts

I’ve played the GSC / Daemons match up a bunch of times in recent months and it is absolute mayhem. Spooky and sneaky tricksters popping up left right and centre, a lot of sudden and unexpected death from reserves, and high scoring secondaries as far as the eye can see. On the Daemons side Kit has leaned a little harder into Slaanesh than some of the builds we’ve seen of late, with Shalaxi Helbane making an appearance and Daemonettes serving as the troop choice alongside the increasingly common wall of Fiends. Daemonettes absolutely LOVE carving up GSC troops and bikers with their high volume, high ap attacks, and leveraging them well is crucial in this tie. Skull Cannons and a Seeker Chariot offer a bit of cheap screening and trading potential, but the in opting to leave Belakor and the phase-capped Bloodthirster at home the Daemons have skimped on two of the units that the GSC shooting builds find most irritating to chew through. Kairos Fateweaver brings incredible psychic dominance and the ability to ‘Vect’ a stratagem which can certainly help limit the many janky 1 CP tools available to the opposition here. GSC leadership doesn’t hold up well to scrunity, and that combined with the huge slabs of cheap bodies means that Nourished by Terror can actually be a really profitable secondary choice for the Daemons in this tie.

The age of the Genestealer Cults continues apace this week, and Nicholas has done me the favour of trying something outside of the Industrial Affinity custom cults to show that there’s a little more to this recent success than traits alone! Pauper Princes have been a niche pick in 9th edition, but they pack some very useful tools in the current meta, and for this tie. The Reliquary of Saint Tenndarc can combo with the Nexos to broadcast a 5++ onto core units around the board, helping things weather enemy shooting that little bit better. This combos especially well with the inclusion of the Biophagus here, who can buy a pregame 5+++ for one of those biker slabs to ensure you have one extremely durable brick of Atalan Jackals for midfield contestation. In a shooting meta that increasingly has the raw output to get past the more subtle defences of Accustomed to Turmoil and War Convoy, this is a smart play and one we may start to see more of going forwards. Last Gasp, the Pauper Princes specific power, really hurt fragile trading units like Daemonettes, by throwing back mortal wounds as large GSC units die. Hand flamers scattered across a huge number of msu Acolyte packs ensure crossfire tokens will get applied wherever they are needed for the big blobs of Neophytes, and the Kelemorph gets a rare day off, replaced here by the Reductus Saboteur for some anti Vehicle / Monster punch.

In essence this tie comes down to who can put the most fatal hurt on during their ‘go’ turns in 2-3. The Daemons have less trading assets here, so they need to break through the GSC lines and destroy their home castle (there will typically be a bunch of squishy characters hiding somewhere ripe for the eating if they can achieve this). In return the GSC forces have to ensure that their deep strike shooting wipes out the crucial assets for the Daemons (particularly the Daemonettes and Fiends) before they are able to retaliate, as they won’t hang around if the neverborn do manage to get their claws into them. The mission was Tear Down Their Icons, and I have to say with its bomb planting action secondary this really favours the go-wide Acolytes in the GSC list, as Nicholas has plenty of spare assets to be ticking off RBD whilst also planting bombs. In contrast the Daemons need their units for the fight here, and it looks like they fell just short of managing to clear enough of the cult in time.

Result

Genestealer Cult Victory – 88 – 71

Nicholas Rose – Genestealer Cult – 1st Place

Credit: Keewa

The List

See showdown

Archetype

Pauper Princes Horde GSC

Thoughts

As alluded to above, this is a breath of fresh air amidst GSC lists that are starting to look a bit samey even to a long term fan like myself. The Biophagus handing out buffs is a really fun and flavourful piece, but the combo with the Reliquary alluded to above is really strong and useful to have. Pauper Princes give up a degree of ranged offence but the +1 to hit in combat that they gain helps make all of the horde units deceptively dangerous to all but elite troops, and the A Trap Sprung Acolytes benefit hugely from the added accuracy in combat. Well done Nicholas on trying something a bit different and smashing the opposition to boot!

Jake Gonzalez – Goffs – 2nd Place

Ork Squighog Boyz. Credit: Magos Sockbert
Ork Squighog Boyz. Credit: Magos Sockbert

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Goff Squigs for Dayz

Thoughts

Another variation on the highly successful Goffs pressure builds we’ve been seeing in Arks of Omen. This settles the Battlewagon / Kill Rigs debate by simply TAKING BOTH (a very Orky solution Jake, well done). Big packs of Squigboyz bring speed and durability, and there is an outing for the big man himself, Makari, and his man servant Ghazghkull. I suspect these ride in the Battlewagon (where the cheap Mek can also occupy a space, ready to die if a 1 gets rolled when the vehicle pops), and this army is capable of staging an enormous amount of pressure immediately and never looking back. It’s a little lighter on infantry bodies and mission play than some recent Ork lists (the price of bringing an expensive heavy hitter like Makari, I guess) but it will bowl opponents off the board very quickly if they don’t come up with convincing answers fast.

Carmine Battista – Adeptus Custodes – 3rd Place

Trajann Valoris by Crab-stuffed Mushrooms

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Custodes Golden Slab

Thoughts

It’s a good day for experimentation on a powerful theme, as Carmine builds on recent Custodes victories and explores the Emissaries Imperatus, a sub faction I know loads about and absolutely didn’t have to read up about on Wahapedia. There are some nice sub faction traits to be found here, with fights first and the ability to ignore modifiers to hit and wound in combat (great for two of the big meta challenges in Daemons and GSC!). A ten slab of Wardens makes an appearance, and I can only congratulate Carmine for utilising some restraint and bringing just the one of these.

Several packs of Venatari bring mobile reach and punch and combine nicely with Into the Darkness, the Emissaries stratagem that allows for a pre-game move, giving this list the chance to bowl some early pressure as the rest of it gets into position, which is extremely useful into enemy gunlines. Inquisitor Coteaz brings psychic game and the ability to mess with enemy stratagems via Spy Network. This is a really well rounded list that can mix it up at range and in combat, and comes equipped for a melee scrap via the sub faction traits. It says something about how good some of the traits in the Custodes book that this hasn’t seen more use in the past, congratulations Carmine for showing the way!

Kit Smith Hanna – Chaos Daemons – 4th Place

Credit: Svbfloorvg

The List

See showdown

Archetype

Mixed Arms Daemons

Thoughts

As established in the showdown, Kit has mixed up the formula a bit by Bringing Shalaxi Helbane and Kairos as their heavy hitters alongside some of the usual suspects in Fiends and Flamers. There are some real positives to doing so – Shalaxi brings crucial Warp Locus tech for delivering other Slaanesh daemons with, and with the -1 to hit and wound and dizzying volume of damage 3 attacks is well placed to blend through space marines and Custodes alike. Getting bogged down fighting the greater daemon can be a recipe for disaster for many armies, as it frees up the extremely punchy supporting infantry and beasts to get to work.

Nurglings help secure early board presence and lure the foe into the mid board, where the daemon delivery shenanigans will do the rest. An Infernal Enrapturess skulks around doing a reasonable impression of Konrad Kurze on the weekends and brings yet more Warp Locus potential, which means its very easy for this list to hide a substantial portion of the Slaanesh contingent off the board, and get it quickly into the fight when it needs to. Really inventive and synergistic list design from Kit, well done!

The Best of the Rest

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

  • 5th – William Ivey – Astra Militarum: Born Soldiers Goodstuff.
  • 6th – James DeCunzo – Dark Angels: Mixed Deathwing/Ravenwing.
  • 7th – Sweet Lew – Votann: Single Fort Ymyr.
  • 8th – Matthew Tweedel – World Eaters:  Lots of Eightbound with Angron.
  • 9th – Jared Gomez – Ultramarines: A very elite Ultramarine list with Dreadnoughts and Terminators.
  • 10th – Bryce Robinson – Iron Warriors & Daemons: Anti-horde powerhouse, mixing Obliterators and Tzeentch Daemons.
  • 11th – Robert Moreland – Astra Militarum: Born Soldiers with lots of Sentinels and an Earthshaker Battery, plus Ratlings to screen out attempts to tag it.
  • 12th – Christian Rice – Astra Militarum: Born Soldiers Russ/Tank Commander spam.
  • 13th – David Lima – Dark Angels: Mixed Deathwing/Ravenwing with Ezekiel.
  • 14th – Chad Lapham – Dark Angels: Heavy Ravenwing with guns for days.
  • 15th – Robert Rettew – Votann: Single fort Ymyr with some Sagitaurs.

9th Barrie Bash

66-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Barrie, ON CA on March 04 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Falcon is in charge here.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission – Data Scry-salvage

Dustin Henshaw – Genestealer Cult: Industrial Cult with lots of vehicles and small Acolyte units.

Army List - Click to Expand

vs.

Sam Procopio – Blood Angels: Jump Packs and Infiltrators galore, with some Helverins for ranged punch.

Army List - Click to Expand

Thoughts

Mechanized GSC vs Blood Angels with Knight support is definitely an intriguing match-up. In the current Arks of Omen meta one would expect that this would be a slam dunk for the GSC, they have been putting up serious results on the backs of their wide variety of tricks (more accurately see massed amounts of demolition charges) and are showing no signs of slowing down. Blood Angels notoriously have struggled with being able to pop open transports and kill the things inside in the same turn and though the advent of free inferno pistols and melta has upped their viability, the prospects aren’t that incredible as the units have to commit deep and are often going to be brutalized by the clapback. That said, they’ll definitely have to commit to the center of the board by turn 2 if they want to stand a chance here as ‘sticky objectives’ makes Data-Scry Salvage a pretty bloody affair, and then just hope they can kill enough models loaded down with dynamite so they can weather the 25+ demo charges in the opposing list. The addition of the 2 Blessed Arms Helverins here definitely help shore up the Sons of Sanguinius’ biggest failing in long ranged firepower and Sam’s Chapter Master with the Visage of Death and Rites of War combo will no doubt be clutch in turning primary around for at least a turn. On Dustin’s side of things it just comes down to how many trucks are alive when the Reductus Saboteur and Kelermorph kick in the door and start blastin’. I managed to get a full rundown of the game from Dustin Henshaw himself:

Sam went first and didn’t commit anything, just brought in his two armigers to try and get some angles on some of my trucks. But I managed to cut the angles enough that he couldn’t see any, because blips are the most balanced thing in 40k. On my turn I sent a few trucks and grinders to where the armigers were, including a truck that had a Kelermorph and Saboteur in it, destroyed them, and setup for turn 2 while keeping far enough away that Sam would have some big charges to make it into my back vehicles. I put one grinder onto his objective to bait out a heroic from a Sanguinary Guard squad hoping he would feel confident enough to all in me on that flank so I could get him range of all my demo charges. Unfortunately, his shooting went WAY better than I averaged in my head and killed an extra truck than I was expecting. But on the other flank my bike squad moved up, killed an assault squad trying to get Oath of Moment for him in the center and popped 3 of the sang guard in another squad with a demo charge to cripple it a bit, and then tied up a death company squad and infiltrator squad on his home objective to stop any actions. He killed a LOT of my stuff turn 2, but with my leftover trucks and acolytes I managed to clear all of his units aside from 3 Sanguinary Guard models and his Chapter Master. He pulled out with his remaining models to clear his home flank and the rest of the game was literally just us getting our points and staying away from each other since between the two of us, I think there were 25 models left on the board. He had an end game play that if it went perfectly could have given him the win, but if it didn’t, since I had bottom turn, it would have just given the game to me. I didn’t have the movement he did to make any plays, so he decided not to take the risk which kept the game at a massive draw, but a nail biter until the end.

Result

Draw! – 94 – 94

Sam Procopio – Blood Angels – 1st Place

Blood Angels Death Company
Blood Angels Death Company. Credit: Jack Hunter

The List

See showdown

Archetype

Disco Inferno

Final Round Matchup

94 – 94 Victory against Dustin Henshaw – Genestealer Cult.

Thoughts

As mentioned int the showdown, Sam’s list adds 2 Blessed Arms Helverins to shore up his long range firepower and then goes all in on jump packs and melta weapons. Having followed him all edition, Sam has long eschewed Dante for the Visage of Death/Rites of War combo on a custom chapter master, giving not only his masses of sanguinary guard objective secured but also himself, while also shutting down obsec on his opponents’ models, a really potent combo for turning around primary when you need it most. 3 Infiltrator Squads fulfill double-duty here, allowing 2 to screen out the midfield to open the game while the 3rd can sit on a home objective and deny later game reserve shenanigans. The loss of armor of contempt really hurt sanguinary guard’s longevity but it can’t be argued that this list lost any of its speed or deadliness.

TJ Lanigan – Genestealer Cult – 2nd Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

The Proletariat Horde

Thoughts

Where Dustin went with a mechanized list to deliver the many-armed embrace of enlightenment, TJ Lanigan has gone for a more conventional method of delivery, choking the bourgeoisie with bodies and bikes for days. An unrelenting tide of angry miners able to freely use and abuse ambush markers and strategic reserves with Proficient Planning upgrades, you’re never truly done killing these guys. The 3 maxed units of jackals are the real hammer here putting out impressive damage while pinning an opponent into their deployment zone long enough for the rest of the plan so many years in the making to unfold.

Dustin Henshaw – Genestealer Cult – 3rd Place

Credit: BuffaloChicken

The List

See showdown

Archetype

Demolition Derby

Thoughts

Sometimes you just want to blow things up, and that’s just what this list is all about. I already talked at length about the damage output and board control this boasts, it is extremely effective at controlling the pace of a game. See the showdown for more.

Mark Wang – Adeptus Custodes – 4th Place

Vertus Praetor
Vertus Praetor. Credit: Pendulin

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Emperor’s Chosen Things

Thoughts

While there has been a swing to the fast and fancy footwork of the Solar Watch for Custodes, the reliability of Emperor’s Chosen is very hard to let go of. 9 Vertus Praetors backed by a Ceaseless Hunter Captain on Bike provide ample speed and anti-vehicle firepower. 2 Achillus Dreads with Adrathic guns are absolutely designed to pick up marines while the 2 solo Allarus terminators make for stalwart action monkeys and stealers/holders of objectives.

The Best of the Rest

There were 8 more players on 4-1 records. They were:

  • 5th – Devin Swann – Astra Militarum: Boring Soldiers Goodstuff
  • 6th – Hamza Syed – Harlequins: Light Boats
  • 7th – Luc Bourdages – Leagues of Votann: Ymyr Goodstuff
  • 8th – Konrad Motyka – Ynnari: Ynnari Council
  • 9th – Bradley Skinner – Genestealer Cults: Twisted Helix
  • 10th – Mike Harrison – Astra Militarum: Boring Soliders Goodstuff
  • 11th – Adam Marcinkowski – T’au Empire: T’au Tides
  • 12th – Keith Davis – Chaos Daemons: Undivided Potpourri

Cagbash XVI

56-player event in Ohio. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Garrett Stacy – Death Guard – 1st Place

Plagueburst Crawler – Credit Beanith

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Crunchy Inexorable

Final Round Matchup

96-93 Victory against Kevin Leonard – World Eaters.

Why it’s Interesting in 9th

Death Guard haven’t been having a fantastic time of it in Arks, so since Garrett went above and beyond in sending me some notes about his success over each of his games, I’m just going to let him take it from here – listen up, Nurgle fans. If you want to hear more from Garrett, he puts up Battle Reports on his YouTube channel Watchers in the Dark.

Garrett

Game 1
Creations of Bile
The tournament started off well matched into CSM and I was able to bully them off the mid point and chip away the Chaos Terminators with the PBCs. Putting everything into them on turn two let me drop the blob.
Thanks Conrad love you buddy you’ll crush me next time!

Game 2
Custodes
This match I was a little worried about. I went second and I was nervous of the speed and offence from his 10 bikes. Thankfully we weathered the storm and after making two 8″ charges with Drones I was able to launch a devastating counter-attack taking out eight of the bikes, while only losing a few marines and a drone.
David our rematch will be legendary!

Game 3
Guard
So realistically here I got a big break when his battery of Rapiers whiffed early on thanks to some good saves on a drone. That allowed me to just run a swarm of drones and PBCs at him and prioritise removing the threats to them. While that was going on, I walked the Terminators at him with Miasma and Vitality up, and that gave them the resilience to shrug off almost everything. From there, I won the game by dominating the Primary with threats he could no longer shift.

Game 4
Guard
This was a bit more of a meta build, and on a mission where we started 18″ apart I decided that my best bet was to play very aggressively – deploy forward, and either reap the rewards of going first, or hope he can’t kill enough going second. I lost the die roll, but was just about able to weather the storm. Three Plague Marines and all 3 Drones died, but being able to fully bring my army to bear allowed me to down 3 Leman Russes and bracket the other 2, also killing enough of the Kasrkin to allow my Terminators to operate freely. They advanced grindingly upon the enemy, and I ended the game holding his home objective with ObSec Terminators!

Game 5
World Eaters
This game was unbelievably amazing, and I really thought I was beat going into it. Kevin is an amazing player, and luck definitely played a part in my victory. I deployed on the line with the hopes of being able to stage against him, knowing that this meant I could be in trouble if he went first.

He went first and I was in trouble.

This is where the luck kicked in. Lord Invocatus managed to fail a re-rolled 5″ charge, which did just enough to blunt his early assault that I was able to push back into the game. This became a complete bloodbath, with only a handful of models left at the end of the game, but when the dust settled I was victorious.

Kevin played like an absolute legend and I think he deserved the W more than me. 100% next time we play I am in danger!

General Thoughts

Death Guard remain a punishing faction to play, and I feel like I got bailed out by the dice a few times, but I had a fantastic event overall, and am planning to shoot for number 1 Death Guard

Secondary-wise, I took Spread The Sickness every game – it was always a reliable 11, and often a 15. The other commonly picked secondary was Fleeing Vectors, which works really well in this list thanks to the number of Infantry-heavy armies that are out there in the metagame right now. Other Secondaries were picked based on the matchup.

Wings: Thanks to Garrett for the insight. What’s very striking to me is how important the sheer resilience of this list was in the current metagame – it soaked up some alpha strikes from very nasty armies and was still able to go out and swing for the fences. It sounds like Garrett was using his Plagueburst Crawlers very aggressively, and that might be the secret sauce to getting the most from them right now.

Folger Pyles – Ynnari – 2nd Place

Credit: Keewa

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Melee Ynnari

Why it’s Interesting in 9th

This list inflicts a nightmarish amount of melee pressure, while having some great disruption from multiple units of Shroud Runners, and a bit of a shooting hammer from the D-Cannons when really needed. Folger also sent in some thoughts, here covering his final round matchup against an equally murderous Nihilakh Necron build with tonnes of Destroyers. Take it away!

Folger: 

I took No Prisoners, Warp Ritual, and Behind Enemy Lines, while he took the the 3 Necron Secondaries. The mission was Secure Missing Artefacts.

I went 1st and my main goal was to pin him in his deployment zone to both slow down his Secondaries and apply preassure to his priority objective. we both choose the objective not in each other’s deployment zone. My goal was to get as many early points, as possible and create too much of a gap to close. By turn 2 he had nothing on his priority objective and nothing range of it, while I had the yncarne. He brought down some his destroyers and plane to try and take the Yncarne out, but they survived and proceded to clear his objective again. Throughout this I was wracking up VP by scoring 8 primary to his 4, and maxed-out  Behind Enemy Lines and Warp Ritual. it goes to my turn 4 with a score of 76 to 31.

I start to set up for the finishing blow by capping No Prisoners and then my clock expires! Unfortunately I wasn’t paying attention at all to it through out the game. This opens the door for him to try and make a comeback, and though I score a few more pts from just sitting on objectives, he rallies back to make it a very close game. I eventually win 91 to 82.
The Ynnaris’ ability to be hyper-aggressive turns 1 through 3 with lighting fast speed and lethal melee are the reasons I was able to win this game despite clocking.

Wings: Some more great insights there, and yes being able to so aggressively rack up scoring can be a bit unusual for Eldar, making it a real attraction of this kind of build.

The Rest of the Best

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

  • 3rd – Kevin Leonard – World Eaters: Hyper-aggressive Invocatus Eightbound spam. Scored an eye-watering total of 491 points over 5 games, World Eaters Secondaries are no joke.
  • 4th – Sam Dayton – Space Wolves Successors: Melee Successors with lots of Wulfen and combi-melta Wolf Guard Terminators.
  • 5th – Nathan Gould – Black Templars: Full hero mode Templars with a squad of Assault Centurions in a Land Raider Crusader, plus other crunchy toys like Redemptors.
  • 6th – Alex Roach – Adeptus Custodes: Emperor’s Chosen with lots of guns, three multi-melta Contemptors and a pair of Caladius tanks.
  • 7th – Elijah Crooker – Astra Militarum: Born Soldiers goodstuff with most of the normal toys, but also some Ratlings and Sly Marbo for a few extra tricks.
  • 8th – Dorian Napoles – Adeptus Custodes: Another Contemptor/Caladius-heavy Emperor’s Chosen setup.
  • 9th – Matt Estrada – Astra Militarum: Born Soldiers goodstuff with extra heavy hitters in the form of a Dorn and some Bullgryn.

Corsair Open Grand Tournament

43-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in München, BY DE on March 04 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Christoph Jäcksch – Ynnari – 1st Place

Credit: Greg Narro

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Melee Ynnari

Final Round Matchup

75 – 72 Victory against Jens Gottfried – Genestealer Cult.

Thoughts

Ynnari go from strength to strength – as we saw above these lists can play super aggressive when they need to, and the sting in the tail represented by the Yncarne and D-cannons can punish people who try to shut down their nonsense. Congratulations to Christoph on the win!

Niklas Lackner – Dark Angels – 2nd Place

Credit: PierreTheMime

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Mixed Dark Angels

Thoughts

Dark Angels players have driven me to the point of just trying to find one interesting thing to say about each list, and I think the point to highlight on this one is Ezekiel being here – he adds a lot of utility, and I think something that people are gradually realising in the Arks meta is that cutting yourself out from Abhor the Witch is nowhere near as much of an issue as it once was, as very few top lists give out max points on it. Congratulations to Niklas.

The Best of the Rest

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

  • 3th – Nikolas Berg – Drukhari: A curveball here – lots of fully tooled shuriken rifle/special weapon Voidreavers riding around in Raiders, with lots of Incubi as shock troops.
  • 4th – Roman Kleiber – Votann: GTL 2Fort.
  • 5th – Max Nitschinger – Adeptus Custodes: Go-wide MSU Emperor’s Chosen.
  • 6th – Max Herzog – Adepta Sororitas: Valorous Heart going for big units of Sacresants and Retributors with some Helverins backing them up.
  • 7th – Michael Rüffer – Dark Angels: Two big Deathwing units with masses of Land Speeders zipping around them.
  • 8th – Fabian Brendel – Dark Angels: All-Deathwing, adding some Terminator Assault Squads and Bladeguard to the normal Deathwing bricks.

Norsehammer Open 2023 – 40K

38-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Rogaland NO on March 04 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Rasmus Valand Fredriksen – Drukhari & Harlequins – 1st Place

Credit: Wings

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Drukhari Goodstuff

Final Round Matchup

20 – 0 Victory against Steffen Ommundsen – Leagues of Votann.

Thoughts

Never underestimate the Drukhari. They’ve struggled a bit in Arks, but Incubi are still prepostorously deadly killers, and transports are very strong in a meta where there are plenty of Mortars and quite a few melee-focused lists. I really like the use of the Harlequin detachment to smooth the Secondary game here too – it opens up Warp Ritual when needed, and the small Troupe is great for ticking off two quarters of RND if you need that. Plenty of Drukhari units are still strong, but Secondaries are a definite weak point, and there are some smart choices from Rasmus here to mitigate that.

The Best of the Rest

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

  • 2nd – Patrick Woods – Chaos Daemons: Monster mash with two Bloodthirsters and Big Bird, plus lots of the three Fs (Fiends, Flamers, Flesh Hounds) in support.
  • 3rd – Christopher Jacobsen – Craftworlds & Harlequins: Hail of Doom with masses of Windriders and Dire Avengers to hose stuff down, and Twilight Troups for counter-charge.
  • 4th (3 wins, 2 draws) – Paweł Czyszczoń – Imperial Knights: Freeblade Lance with an angry Herald Gallant and a Crusader for handing out buffs and dakka.
  • 5th (3 wins, 2 draws) – Nicolai Jørgensen – Dark Angels: Standard Deathwing/Ravenwing stuff.

Wrap Up

It’s Big Warhammer time again this weekend at the UKTC Southampton supermajor in the UK, so tune in next week to see what flavour of sinister villain claims victory (or if some improbably heroics hold them back).

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