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Competitive Innovations in 9th: Teamup Ark

By James "One_Wing" Grover

After the excitement of LVO last weekend, it looks like a lot (though not all) of the tournament scene is taking a bit of a weekend off (understandable). Next week we’ll be back to full speed on singles, with Beachhead Brawl providing a massive major, and the first opportunity for the UK’s top players to add some big numbers to their new season’s ITC score, so there will be plenty to talk about then, but with only three GTs this week, it felt like a good opportunity to glance at the exciting world of team events, reviewing the top two sets of rosters from the Northern Warlords Winter Teams. Team events are often a good place to identify where the “extremes” are in the format, so the dawn of a new season is the perfect time to take a look.

That means that today we’ll be looking at:

  • Cross Swords 2023
  • Bastion Games Ulster Warlords 2.0: Wrath of Angels
  • Torneo The Guild León
  • Northern Warlords Teams

Note that we’ll also be covering CaptainCon, the biggest event of the week, on a special Friday addendum. With only a few events and plenty of churn among the top lists, I’m just going to cover all three showdowns in the other events this week. Democracy dies once more.

CROSS-SWORDS 40K 2023

40-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in England GB on February 04 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission – Unknown

Simon Corder – Space Wolves: Robots and rabid dogs – lots of cheap Dreadnoughts as an anvil, Long Fangs and Wulfen as a hammer.
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vs.

Mani Cheema – Dark Angels: Another very strong hammer and anvil list – ultra-quick Ravenwing shooting to deplete the enemy early on, two big Deathwing bricks to soak up whatever the opponent throws out in response.
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Thoughts

Gregs hopes of getting a real, genuine reign of terror this time are looking pretty good if early results are anything to go by, as Dark Angels look super hot in the new metagame. The reasons why aren’t especially complicated – you take units that are already pretty aggressively priced in Arks like Terminators and Speeders, and amp up their durability with the Ravenwing and Deathwing bonuses. Thanks to the Devastator part of the Dark Angels superdoctrine, the speeders have enormous reach out of the gate, and can very quickly build up Codex Warfare if they stick in that mode for a few turns, while the Deathwing can move to the board centre and stay there, defying most attempts to deal with them. Easily one of the most promising-looking lists in the metagame, so can anything stand up to it?

Honestly – this Space Wolves list is better tooled than most, for a few reasons. First up, small Dreadnoughts might normally be a bit of a liability against the Ravenwing, but the Blizzard Shields that most are carrying around make them far sterner prospects to take on, giving some chance of an alpha strike at least partially whiffing, and requiring serious commitment to pick off if they’re lurking behind terrain, perhaps forcing an overextension. Secondly, there’s aren’t many units in the game that Deathwing terminator bricks fear, but Wulfen are on that list – with a bit of luck on the superdoctrine, helped along the way by Chapter Master and potentially Murderfang joining in (also pretty well statted to actually scare the Deathwing a bit). Add in the Armour of Russ to drop Fight Last on a block, and the fact that charging in to Wulfen is nearly as dangerous as getting charged, and there’s an actual game here – mostly one of cat and mouse as the Wolves try to keep the Wulfen somewhere that they threaten a dangerous charge, and the Dark Angels try and pick them off before they can unleash any such horrors.

That basically leaves two questions – can the Space Wolves manage to execute some sort of properly terrifying swing turn on the Dark Angels, and if they do, can the Dark Angels use their mobility to pick up the pieces and squeeze out a win afterwards. The Dark Angels having two routes to victory rather than the Wolves one does feel about right here, as the attrition definitely favours them, but I think it’s easy to write the Wolves off entirely if you don’t dig into the list enough to clock that it’s got some pretty excellent tools in the game. I really like the list in general, having long been a fan of Wulfen Dreadnoughts, and from the scoreline they definitely passed the first test of finding a way to make the Dark Angels work for it, but were just ground out in the end, with a very high score for both players.

Result

Dark Angels Victory – 95 – 92

Mani Cheema – Dark Angels – 1st Place

Credit; Greg Chiasson

The List

See Showdown

Archetype

Dark Angels Ravenwing and Deathwing

Thoughts

We here at Goonhammer officially welcome the metagame’s new Dark Angels overlords. This list is obviously great just from the units that have been squeezed into it, but what I think makes the best Dark Angels builds (and this is one) really stand out is how difficult it is to avoid them leveraging their strengths. Ravenwing have the speed (especially in Devastator Doctrine) to put bullets wherever they’re needed early and often, and there’s almost nothing that no-sells the combination of perma-transhuman and a 1+/4+  when trying to kill the Deathwing – other units with ridiculous numbers of thunder hammer swings (i.e. Wulfen) are kind of it. That’s not to say they can’t be taken down, but it’s usually going to be hard work, and the time spent doing it is time when the Ravenwing guns are depleting the enemy’s forces, often from behind self-same wall of Terminators. A build to watch as the big events ramp up once more.

The Best of the Rest

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

  • 2nd – Simon Corder – Space Wolves: See showdown.
  • 3rd – George McCoulough – Drukhari: Dark Technomancers returns, here amping up a quartet of Cronos and a Tantalus, with various standard Drukhari toys like Incubi and powerful Characters backing them up.
  • 4th – Jonathan Summerfield – Salamanders: A flame-tastic Salamanders list packing three units of Aggressor and a full brick of Eradicators.
  • 5th – Cameron Giles – Adeptus Custodes: Crunchy Emperor’s Chosen, featuring lots of Dreadnoughts, a pair of Caladius tanks and a unit of Venatari to go out hunting now that they’re ObSec once more.
  • 6th – James Mclean – Tyranids: ObSec Jormundgandr monster mash that sticks to foot Tyrants to free up a few points in the grim new world Tyranids find themselves in.
  • 7th – David LaPorta – Tau: Tau Sept Triptide.

Bastion Games Ulster Warlords 2.0: Wrath of Angels

36-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Northern Ireland GB on February 04 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

This event used 20-0 scoring.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission – Recover the Relics

Richard Moore – Genestealer Cult: Industrial Cult Neophyte/Bike swarm.
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vs.

Michael McConkey – Chaos Space Marines: All-rounder Word Bearers with some Flamers of Tzeentch in tow.
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Thoughts

On to our second showdown, and it’s another one that gets more even the longer you look at it. Certainly on an initial glance I wasn’t convinced that the Chaos Space Marines could survive the sheer number of bodies and shots that the Cults present here, but they’ve actually got a lot going for them. Firstly, the mission is helpful – it makes it easier to screen out the Cults, much harder for the cult to aim to seriously tank primary, and has an objective map that broadens secondary options a bit. Good start. Second, there’s some decent anti-horde in the Word Bearers list – the Flamer unit is obviously gold, but the Terminators and Possessed both do nasty things to whatever they touch too. Thirdly, the list is very herohammer heavy, and the main unit that’s going to be out in the open is the Terminators, which are a tough one for a lot of the Cult toys to handle. Not only does that create a risk of a whiff into the Terminators followed by tragic consequences, it means that if the Terminators do go down there’s at least a second wave of nasty characters to rock into combat and start racking up a body count. It’s notable that the GSC list is on a pure horde plan, with very little in the way of counter-charge tools, so if they start getting multiple units tagged at once things get notably tough for them.

All that comes together with one final factor – the GSC have a harder time finding a third good Secondary here than Chaos. Broodswarm and Banners are obviously fine, but No Prisoners and either Banners or Exalt are just as free in the other direction. Because Ambush is unusually weak due to the low drop count for Chaos, third options for both sides plausibly end up being Assassinate or a Warpcraft choice, and it feels like Chaos have an easier time on both of those (and probably more additional options they’re willing to countenance to boot). Add that up and if the Cult can’t just clear the Chaos side out when they go for alpha strikes, this game suddenly looks a bit dicey for them. That means they can’t just do the normal Cult trick of relying on doing enough to stall the enemy that their strong secondaries and ability to deny primary sees them through to victory – they need to aim for actually wiping Chaos off the table. It’s certainly doable, and the plan is quite possibly to try and just clear everything that isn’t the Terminators as quickly as possible, as that’ll reduce the freedom that the Characters have to operate, though depending on how the early game plays out that could end up risky too – Blissful Devotion can give them long reach from the mid board, and if they start wrecking house on the GSC’s near objectives, they might not be able to pry them out in time.

Definitely feel like this could go either way, and I also think that it’s more possible for the Cults to pick up a big win here if their early alpha turns go very well, but as things played out the Word Bearers were able convery the important message that only one type of cultist is allowed around here, thank you very much.

Result

Chaos Space Marines Victory – 13 – 7

Michael McConkey – Chaos Space Marines – 1st Place

Credit: Swiftblade

The List

See Showdown

Archetype

Word Bearers Herohammer

Thoughts

Mostly covered in the showdown, I think a lot of the strength of this list comes from the very narrow attack surface it presents. Don’t have a good answer to a big brick of Terminators with the Black Rune and Illusory Supplication? Then you’re getting lots of terrifying stuff thrown at you, and you’re going to like it. Add in the significant boost that the CSM Secondaries picked up in Arks, and this seems like a sold strategy, and nice to see Chaos not immediately vanishing beneath the loyalist boot – well done Michael.

The Best of the Rest

A lot of the games at the top here look to have been incredibly closely fought, with no one making it all the way through the event undefeated and a very blury line as to where to cut so Im just going to hit the rest of the top four and call it a day.

  • 2nd – Richard Moore – Genestealer Cult: See Showdown.
  • 3rd – David Kane – Red Scorpions: Someone actually went and did it – put Repulsors on the table in 2023. This list runs as Ultramarine Successors with the Red Scorpion special characters, ensuring that the tanks can’t get tied down in melee, and that the Invictors clanking to war alongside them are extra flexible.
  • 4th – Gareth Agnew – Death Guard: Lots of Bloat-drones, lots of Deathshrouds and Plague Marines to fill, all as Mortarion’s Anvil for extra board control and the Gloaming Bloat on a nasty Daemon Prince.

Torneo The Guild León

34-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in León, Gto. México on February 04 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission – Unknown

Xavier Barrera – Iron Hands: Iron Hands Successors packing Long-range Marksmen and Master Artisans for maximum melta death.
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vs.

Luis Humberto Casillas Franco – Imperial Knights: Extra-shooty House Taranis with a pair of Crusaders.
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Thoughts

Look – sometimes you can talk about the deep nuances of strategy that both armies have going for them, and sometimes you have two armies that want to blow each other into tiny pieces, and are going to race each other to do it. You’re not going to bet against Iron Hands in that sort of matchup, but I think there certainly is an argument that this Knight list has a better chance than most of pulling it off, especially if there’s any ruins on the board that a Crusader can hide behind. At that point, there’s plausibly a world where you hide one, strat reserve the other, and then hope that you get a good turn of shooting when they first commit, and follow it up with some low-rolled melta wounds from the Iron Hands side to give you momentum to follow through. Not needing to hit melee to start racking up a body count really helps give the Knights a chance here – they probably need one turn of good luck rather than multiple to get something of a foothold. Being Taranis is also incredibly helpful, every wound saved helps, and making the roll on Our Darkest Hour is another possibility to tilt things in their favour. The killing power of the Hands build is incredible, but they at least die reliably to AP-2 weaponry in response now, and the Knights have the big Calculated Targeting plays to throw out too, which can speed up the clock.

The reason I am going through all these things is that, though the Iron Hands did manage to do their thing, the Knights came shockingly close to pulling off an upset in this game, with only a six point difference then the (presumably numerous) explosions died down. That’s worth keeping an eye on, especially as in one of his other games Luis was able to defeat a very scary looking Guard build. If being able to engage ultra-shooty Marine and Guard lists on their own terms is what matters in Arks, Taranis might be the play.

Result

Iron Hands Victory – 81 – 75

Xavier Barrera – Iron Hands – 1st Place

Iron Hands Infiltrators
Credit: head58

The List

See Showdown

Archetype

Guns

Thoughts

Guns. There are some. Lots, in fact.  The use of Long-Ranged Marksmen to push out the thread range of said guns makes this even harder to avoid than the standard Hands build, so it has that going for it, and like the Dark Angels list from earlier, this is an army you’re going to see and (if you’re playing events) experience a lot over the next few months. Well done to Xavier on the win.

The Best of the Rest

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

  • 2nd – Gustavo Martinez – Chaos Knights: All War Dog Herpetrax, with some Biomechanical Fusion Dreadblades along for the ride.
  • 3rd – Luis Humberto Casillas Franco – Imperial Knights: See Showdown.
  • 4th – Eduardo Casillas de la Torre – Imperial Knights: Freeblade Lance with an Errant and Crusader leading the Armigers to war.
  • 5th – Jose Benjamín Casillas – Thousand Sons & Daemons: Magnus takes personal charge of his legion and a few fiery friends.
  • 6th – Carlos Moreno – Imperial Knights: Freeblade Lance with a Herald Errant and Armigers.

Northern Warlords Teams

For those of you unfamiliar with teams formats (or who need a refresher), it’s worth going and taking a quick look at the format primer we put together here, as that’ll explain some key terminology that I’ll be using when analysing the team compositions.

All the lists for this event can be found in Tourneykeeper.

1st Place – Team Scotland

Christopher Irvine – Leagues of Votann

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Brian Seipp – Harlequins

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Thomas Brown – Genestealer Cults

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Innes Wilson – Iron Hands

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Thoughts

As ever with team events, what we’re looking for are ways in which the armies used fit into particular niches, whether it be as powerful Defender lists, able to pick up decent scores against almost anything, strong counters that attack particular strategies, or armies that pose a very skewed challenge to the opponents, and can potentially blunt a high score if they don’t have an answer.

Starting at the end, Innes’ Iron Hands build here is one that can act as a very effective early defender pick if that’s going to result in him being able to pick the “light” terrain map, because there is basically nothing that exists which can withstand being shot at for multiple turns by this when standing in the open, with the Gladiator Reapers providing an inexpensive way to broaden the threat profile to include hordes. The lowest score Innes picked up all weekend was 15-5 against an ultra-pressure Goffs list, so I’d say that plan worked pretty well.

Two of the lists past that sit in the “skewed challenge” space, the Cult and the Votann. They’re kind of at the polar opposite of the challenges they’re posing – Votann provides an incredibly minimal attack surface, mostly consisting of Land Fortresses with multiple Brokhyr babysitting them, and also presents extremely reliable damage output. This is a great counter to something like Knights, as you’re generally just going to out-kill them, and those were Chris’s biggest wins of the weekend. Cult do the opposite – opponents need massive volume firepower to clear them off the table, and they have very reliable scoring potential from their Secondaries, allowing them to overwhelm some opponents for victory, and threaten to hold even some challenging matchups to a narrow loss or a draw, helping the team overall to pull out ahead.

Finally, we have Harlequins, who even in their newly nerfed state, retain the ability to absolutely run rings around some opponents, and good scoring potential alongside it. The return of original strength Mirror Architect also provides some skew potential – if the opponent is relying on mid-range shooting, they can find themselves unable to deplete the clowns before it’s go time, which doesn’t tend to bode well. Brian spent most of the weekend hunting down Marines and Votann, where the range reductions against melta and the layered durability and re-roll shutdown of the Transports really helps.

A well-balanced team overall, and unsurprisingly effective in the hands of some great players. First blood for the season to Team Scotland.

2nd Place – Happy Endings for 20pts

Matt Robertson – Leagues of Votann

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Tom Higginbottom – Orks

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Adam Ryland – Chaos Daemons

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James Ramsey – Adeptus Custodes

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Thoughts

Our second team loadout presents a bit more of a team-level skew, with three of the lists being notably durable, and presenting good invulnerable/Daemonic saves on all of their key targets. Matt’s Votann build is even harder to pick up any kills against than the Scotland version, with Thunderkyn starting either off the board or (for the small unit) in the Fortresses adding some additional broad shooting that isn’t especially vulnerable early. The Custodes list is a bit more vulnerable against some extreme shooting builds, but excels in no-selling some of the kinds of pressure that the Votann might struggle against – you can’t really out-Primary them unless you’re chipping through their ranks, so if you run into a horde/pressure build like Cults or the Ork list this team had, they can provide a solid wall to repulse the onslaught (and James picked up a 20-0 against Cults in one of the games). Finally, the big Daemons combine being pretty tough to deal with via shooting (potentially overloading opponents trying to find an answer to Votann as well) with enough melee threat to take on an army like the Custodes list head on. The extra cheap Flesh Hounds and mobile Flamers also provide a surprisingly good amount of board control for a monster-heavy build, reducing the number of things that can aim to run rings about it. Adam picked up a good win against Custodes, and also put up a number of strong results against Votann, with the power of Daemon saves potentially proving too much for them.

Finally, we have the odd one out in the horde Goff list – though it’s not something that’s too surprising if you’ve seen Ork builds that are doing well recently. With loads of Stormboyz and Kommandos, this list can slam appalling numbers of bodies into the opponent at speed, threatening to tie up and overwhelm condensed shooty lists, and acting as a great counter to some other flavours of horde. Because they also score very reliably early on, that also helps them neuter some enemy scoring plans – if it takes three or four turns to escape from under the pile of Goffs, there’s only so high your margin of victory is going to be. Tom held some very nasty lists like Votann to draws, and picked up some wins elsewhere in games where opponents seem to have been unable to handle the pressure.

Another strong roster in the hands of some great players, with only Team Scotland taking a victory against them, where the Iron Hands and Harlequins picked up big enough wins against the Custodes and Daemons (who struggle a bit with transports) to tip the balance.

Wrap Up

We hope you have enjoyed the exciting return of Teams week. Next week, as mentioned, we’re back to singles, and maybe some bonus True Wraithknight Adventures, depending on how my own trip to Beachhead goes. Not at all mad that reviewing the Daemon list above has reminded me that the melee Wraithknight is 70pts more than Skarbrand. No sir.

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