This week’s edition of Competitive Innovations is going to be relatively brief – we only had three events this weekend due to it being Easter, and two of those were pre-Balance Dataslate and Tyranid Codex, and were dominated by armies that have big changes on the horizon. However, because travelling to events in the UK tends to comprise “throw an army in the car on Friday night and drive for less than two hours” the tournament scene can be relied upon to always throw up at least one collection of diehards willing to adopt an update with 48 hours notice, so we do have one event that was played with the new rules to look at as well.

Today we’re looking at:

• Firebug Alliance Open Major (which as the name suggests, was a major).
• The West Coast GT
• Team Stonehammer Present: The Gravel Pit GT

Next weekend sees the exciting new metagame kick off in earnest with the Renegade Open Spring Up GT in the US and UKTC Bristol GT in the UK, both of which are including the Dataslate (with Spring Up also including the new Tyranids rules). We’ll have all the action from those in next week’s edition, and for now, we’re going to shake up the normal ordering and cover this week’s event that used the new rules first even though it was the smallest of the three. As ever, a ✪ indicates a player that was either an undefeated runner up, or was undefeated going into the final round.

Team Stonehammer Present: The Gravel Pit GT

All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings. This event was using the new Balance Dataslate.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission – Secure Missing Artefacts

Markus Hinson – Craftworlds – A very finesse-focused Ulthwe list with lots of ways to deal big damage and various units to bait the opponent into position to allow them to do so.

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vs.

Aiden Smalley – Death Guard – Mortarion’s Anvil with lots of Plague Marines in Rhinos and a big brick of Blightlords, plus a VolCon.

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Thoughts

Two flavours of lists that look like they have renewed promise in the post Balance Dataslate metagame here – a good start. On the one hand, you’ve got a Craftworld list that crams in a whole bunch of different units in a way that just allows them to be extremely annoying and hard to pin down – as long as the opponent doesn’t have too much good indirect. Stacking up Web of Deceit, the Swooping Hawks innate ability, Fire and Fade and Matchless Agility allows a huge number of units in the same turn to put out some damage then retreat to safety. Rangers and War Walkers provide units that you can dot round the board to contest objectives early and force the opponent to come get involved, then some powerful counterattack melee and the Fire Dragons brutally punish them for doing that. It’s brittle if the opponent manages to get a blow on it, but with indirect fire suddenly being way less good, there are far fewer lists that can reliably do that. On that note, it’s worth highlighting that the Gloom Field on Rangers is probably worth more of a look now – because the Dense Cover benefit it provides can stack with the -1BS from the indirect penalty, it makes Rangers exceptionally hard to pick up with many indirect options if they’re hiding in a ruin, since they’ll effectively be on a 2+ save and -2 to hit. Some 8th Edition players might be feeling a faint ringing in their ears and be seeing a faint red mist, probably best to ignore that.

On the other side of the table, we’ve got a list that leans even harder on the blessings of Balance – a Death Guard list heavy on Plague Marines and Terminators, the former riding in Rhinos, no less, the latter gaining ObSec, and all enjoying their fancy new ability to ignore the first point of AP. That all combines to give this army tremendous ability to dominate the mid-board, especially as Mortarion’s Anvil with access to the Gloaming Bloat. Flipping an objective out of the control of the big Blightlord unit is going to be the work of several turns, especially with access to switch on Cloud of Flies on a turn where the opponent has lined up overwhelming firepower. That’s an even more reliable plan now that the forward units (the Rhino Plague Marine units) are harder to shift, and genuinely daunting for almost any army to cope with.

Can the Aeldari cope? On this mission, honestly probably not, as the Blightlords can absolutely dominate it. From the Death Guard’s side of the table, the play here is to move one of the non-home objectives 6″ towards the centre so that once the Blightlords reach it they can control both at once, use the Deathshrouds and Plague Marines to push the Aeldari off any other points they control, and grind them into the dust. The Craftworld list here is reliant on being able to meaningfully apply chip damage when it chooses to stay distant, and to get value at the point that it chooses to commit, and both plans feel dicey here. The stuff without AP is going to struggle in any turn where a Jinx isn’t applied, while for the stuff that does have it the effective +1 to saves is very impactful, with the Warp Spiders being particularly badly impacted on how well they can clear the Terminators. The Death Guard don’t have massive reach to hit back either, but anything that gets within strike range probably does end up dead, and where attrition should normally favour an Aeldari list like this one, here they can’t rely on it.

That said, they do have a few good tricks up their sleeves. Mortal wound damage is a good answer to what they’re facing here, and slamming Plague Marines out of the game with Executioner or trying to line up a back-breaking Eldritch Storm are definitely plans that the Asuryani could attempt. It’s definitely enough, in combination with the attrition tools and the Crimson Hunter (which probably wins a duel with the VolCon as long as it doesn’t fly into Psychic/Skull range), for the Asuryani to look to sweep units that aren’t the Blightlords off the table and try and pick up Primary points from the flanks, while probably also aiming to score To The Last from the Spiders, Serpent and plane. This is where the fact that this mission allows the Blightlords to set up a double dip on objective control is a real killer though – as long as the Death Guard also manage to keep their home objective safe, there’s only so much that can be done to stop them pulling ahead, and the scoreline suggests a credible attempt by the Aeldari to prevent this from being a washout, but a solid victory for Mortarion’s forces overall.

Result

Death Guard Victory – 88-68

Corrode: Helpfully, Aiden was able to chime in with his thoughts on this game. Broadly they mirror James’ above – Armour of Contempt is great, but the biggest change in Aiden’s view is gaining Objective Secured on the Terminators. That let him push the Blightlords into the centre and utilise Gloaming Bloat and cover to force an answer from Markus – in particular since Markus’ list lacks sturdy ObSec of its own.

To assist with this Aiden pulled the far corner (from Markus’ perspective) objective towards midfield, letting him compress the game to the centre of the board, and putting it in range of a Rhino to drive forwards and onto it turn 1.

The game plan from there was to pick off Markus’ ObSec units as fast as possible while preserving the Terminators and trying to hold Markus’ primary score down as much as possible. Armour of Contempt obviously helped here, but was particularly valuable on the Plague Marines – Markus picked Grind Them Down, but even the relatively squishy Plague Marine units were extra tough thanks to AoC.

The new rules had a huge impact on the Death Guard’s ability to contest the match-up – Objective Secured Blightlords were apparently vital in every game!

Aiden Smalley – Death Guard – 1st Place

The List

See Showdown.

Archetype

Mortarion’s Anvil Terminators

Why it’s Interesting in 9th

No Plaguebursts! Plague Marines in Rhinos! Absolute scenes.

Fundamentally, you could always build a list like this from the Death Guard book, but for it to work it needs the opponent’s best shot at it to have a chance of bouncing, and from the Drukhari codex onwards that basically stopped being true for the best lists, especially as they could use ObSec units to prevent it from mattering that much if it they had to leave the Terminators till last (though Relaptic Assault helped there a bit). Now that the entire army is tougher and each turn the Terminators aren’t dead is a turn the Death Guard are pulling ahead in, things look pretty different, and much more promising for the Death Guard. People are likely going to be rapidly re-tuning to make sure they can clear big Terminator blobs, so this could still end up getting out-competed, but it’s vastly more appealing than it has been for over a year, and if the plans people come up with involve big melee swings the list can just put a Stench Vats Blightspawn back in (I can only assume the absence is based on the assumption that there are very few things that can hurt the Terminators bad enough on the charge for it to matter. Fun times beckon for the servants of Nurgle, and well done to Aidan on the win.

The Rest of the Best

Three other players finished on 4-1 records. They were:

• 2nd – Simeon Pollard – Adeptus Custodes: Emperor’s Chosen with a new setup. Far more Troops than normal (three units of Sagittarum and two of Guard) now that only they get ObSec, and then for backup three Galatus Dreads (the most naturally durable in a world where they can’t be Auspiced) and two Caladius Tanks to provide reach (and which are good at dealing with Grey Knights or anything trading on 2W Marines if they surge). Not so great into Death Guard though, and they bounced off Aidan’s list in round 4.
• 3rd – Markus Hinson – Craftworlds: See Showdown.
• 4th – Henry Bearne – Harlequins: A substantially depleted version of Light Saedath Voidweaver spam, keeping the nine voids and cutting everything else to the bone to find the additional 360pts. Still clearly a functional list, as nine Voids will just table some lists solo, but had a tough time into Webway/Hail of Doom Craftworlds in the game Henry dropped.

Firebug Alliance Open

All the lists for this event can be found on the Alliance Open’s website.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission – Recover the Relics

Kayu Orellana – Tyranids – Very shooty Crusher Stampede with Hive Guard and two Exocrines protected by a Malanthrope and Maleceptor, with the Crusher tools providing attrition and powerful counter-charge capabilities.

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vs.

Sebastian Urban – Tyranids – Mixed Crusher Stampede, two Exocrines, two Dimas, no Hive Guard.

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Thoughts

As Crusher vs. Crusher games go there is a bit more depth to this than you might expect, though obviously any takeaways are going to be of fleeting relevance at best given that Tyranids have a new book out, and some big events have broken cover on banning Crusher with it.

Kayu’s list here is pretty unusual as Crusher goes – rather than being focused on the big monsters, it wants to use the extra durability that Crusher hands the whole army to play board control, then use access to stratagems like Breaking Through and Thunderous Impact to launch either terrifying counter-charges if the opponent comes to play up close, or deploy Breaking followed by Overrun with the Harpy for further attrition damage if they don’t. It adapts pretty well to some ways opponents might try and counter Crusher, and with a full unit of Hive Guard going on a last hurrah, it’s pretty effective at stripping away opposing board control stuff too. Sebastian’s plan is a much more conventional one,  aiming to run amok with the Swarmlord-powered Dimachaerons and Flyrants Hive Tyrants, though does include a couple of Exocrines for durable long-ranged firepower.

That feeds into what both players want from this game. Kayu wants to really maximise his board-control by quickly taking out some of Sebastian’s units, while Sebastian wants to lean on Kayu’s list potentially not being able to deal with getting hit by multiple large monsters at once, and overwhelm him. The mission ends up favouring Kayu’s plan – while having more units does make it a bit easier for Sebastian to score the Mission primary, six objectives and the deep deployment is very helpful for Kayu, especially as he probably has enough models to screen the Hive Guard from a charge turn one and Strategic Adaptation to respond to the roll off. With Focal Essence applied, fully buffed Hive Guard can still threaten damage reduction targets (and can certainly detonate the Warriors and any Lictors that pop up immediately), meaning that inaction is going to favour Kayu, and while he may not be able to deal with multiple rampaging targets at once, he probably does have the numbers to rebuff an initial push with one monster, which is all he’s going to have to manage early on. In addition to that, Sebastian is going to quickly lose the ability to screen out the backfield, giving the Trygon a real shot at getting a charge into one of the Exocrines off, which could be pivotal (and likely forces something else to hang back as a potential counter.

It’s not 100% in Kayu’s favour, all that said. With multiple Tyrants, Sebastian pretty well placed to pick a Psychic secondary, where Kayu probably can’t, and have a much easier time with Grind, normally a Crusher staple. If Kayu was feeling bold it looks like he could at least contemplate To The Last here, as although it seems likely that at least one of the choices gets punked by the end of the game, if Sebastian loses whatever unit does that in return that’s arguably still pulling the game the way Kayu wants.

Decidedly mixed secondary options in both directions seems to be reflected in the scoreline, which was pretty low for this mission, and in the end that appears to have meant that the army better equipped to push for objective Primary control, Kayu’s, ended up with the win.

Result

Objective Crusher Victory – 71-45

Kayu Orellana – Tyranids – 1st Place

The List

See Showdown

Archetype

Crusher Stampede (objective focused)

Why it’s Interesting in 9th

As covered above, there’s definitely one last burst of innovation with Crusher and the old book on show here, focusing on the fact that its tools allow relatively cheap monsters to become extremely reliable counter-charge punches, then using Hive Guard and durability-boosted board control stuff to take over the game. It’s a a great twist on the formula that clearly put opponents on the back foot, earning Kayu a major trophy.

Adrian Willruth – Adeptus Custodes – 2nd ✪ Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Emissaries Imperatus Sagittarum Spam

Why it’s Interesting in 9th

While this event was pre-Balance Dataslate, this is a Custodes list to pay serious attention to as it’s probably one of the better builds for them to pivot to after it, having been a fairly fringe strategy up till now. The plan isn’t especially complicated – just pile up a huge number of Sagittarum, buff them with Trajann, make them Emissaries Imperatus to ignore hit modifiers, then add Vexilas Defensor and Magnifica to make them extra tough and finish with the Fulminaris Aggressor so that they ignore cover. That gives you a big pile of tough to shift ObSec infantry with a huge amount of grindy firepower pointed back at whatever is trying to kill them, and if the opponent closes to melee they’re facing a lot of misericordia attacks that all Fight First. For matchups where it’s good, Emissaries also provides Into the Darkness for an early push with either the Praetors or the Venatari, and in matchups where you don’t need that those two units team up with Trajann to provide a reasonably challenging To The Last setup.

All of that’s pretty much still true after the updates, making this list look very appealing – it loses a small amount of durability from not being able to spam Auspice, but still has broad ObSec, and because its plan for the bikes in the games it’s going aggro with them is to throw them straight into melee it matters less that it can’t easily protect them in a turn they’re hovering mid-board. Ignoring cover is also going to be crucial for the Sagittarum in an Armour of Contempt world – it means that Marines that have hunkered down are at least not saving on 2+ against the heavy bolter profile, and the adrathic can still chew through Terminators.

Overall, it feels like there’s a very strong chance that Adrian has gotten in early on a new trend here with this undefeated 2nd place run!

Mario Holtge – Craftworlds & Harlequins – 3rd ✪ Place

The List

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Archetype

Craftworld Artillery + Harlequin Boats

Why it’s Interesting in 9th

While nine Voidweavers has been the easy mode energy for the Aeldari book since it landed, this style of list was also extremely good in the book as released. It mixes Asuryani psychic might, indirect fire and a few one-and-done sucker punch units like Warp Spiders with the durable and cost-effective board control elements of the Light Saedath, plus one unit of Voids to take down key targets that can use Fire and Fade to operate with impunity (and the scatter bikes can use Matchless Agility if you need to do both in the same turn).

Very strong, went undefeated here, but is also the Aeldari build that gets hit hardest by the balance dataslate outside of straight up nine voids. Weaker indirect fire and the Harlequin stuff being less cost effective and more fragile post the Mirror Architect nerf throws open the question of whether this kind of combo is the best thing you can be doing, and while mixed lists are very likely still going to be a thing, they’ll probably look quite different to this. The only thing to call out as something you might see more of is the Skyrunner Conclave – both foot and bike multi-model Warlock units are honestly extremely aggressively priced for what you get, but suffered from a glaring specific weakness to indirect fire in general and smart missiles in particular. Indirect stocks going down means these likely get more play in the future. Otherwise, this was a great run with the build for Mario, but expect a lot of changes in the new world.

David Demmel – Harlequins – 4th Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Light Saedath Voidweaver Spam (though only six, with some Bikes as well instead).

Why it’s Interesting in 9th

This list accurately predicts that we’re going to see more Bikes in Harlequin lists in the future as they’re now relatively more cost-efficient as a “hammer” unit, but beyond that all there is left to say about this build is “RIP to a real one”. Congratulations to David on fourth place.

The Rest of the Best

What’s that? The weird sense of impeding doom I always feel when it’s time to compile this section for a five-round major? There were checks standings and sighs thirteen further players who finished on 4-1 records. They were:

• 5th – Christopher Schade – Adeptus Custodes: Bike Spam using Aquilan Shield instead of Emperor’s Chosen in service of making a nigh-unkillable version of the Praetorian Plate captain using Revered Companion.
• 6th – Harald Hofmann – Harlequins: Light Saedath Voidweaver spam.
• 7th – Cees Jan Stam – Tyranids: Aggro Crusher Stampede with two Dimas, two Scythied Hierodules and two Harpies.
• 8th – Constantin Schmucker – Drukhari: Artists Talos and Grotesques with a sprinkling of goodstuff units (most notably a squad of 10 Hellions) to back them up. Hellion stocks definitely go way up with the indirect change, so keep an eye on them.
• 9th ✪ – Florian Schmidt – Harlequins: An all-rounder Light Saedath build with merely five Voids and a big Skyweaver Squad.
• 10th – Fred Otto – Harlequins: Similar again, though with even fewer voids (just 3×1) to make space for a big foot Troupe.
• 11th ✪ – Sebastian Urban – Tyranids: See showdown.
• 12th – Aat Niehot – Genestealer Cults: Aberrant-heavy Twisted Helix, running them alongside a mix of other tools including Purestrains and a big Neophyte squad decked out with heavy weapons.
• 13th – Sebastian Dargel – Adeptus Custodes: More Aquilan Shield this time with lots of Venatari and a bike captain as the unkillable monstrosity.
• 14th – Martin Thorsten – Necrons: Silent King Novokh with lots of Wraiths and Skorpekh.
• 15th ✪ – Felix Adam – Necrons: Eternal Expansionists with just all of the bodies – fifty warriors and forty-six Flayed Ones, and the Silent King overseeing everything.
• 16th – Philipp Wolf – Grey Knights: Swordbearers with four Dreadknights and a Stormraven.
• 17th – Armin Frankenhauser – Adeptus Custodes: Emperor’s Chosen goodstuff cutting out some bikes to add a Telemon and bulk up the infantry units.

West Coast GT

All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings. This event was running on Win/Draw/Loss pairings, but with 20-0 scoring to calculate the result in each game and to determine tiebreakers.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission – Tide of Conviction

Jonathan Sleigh-Johnson – Harlequins – Six Voidweavers plus Troupes and characters running at 1860pts as Twilight Saedath because, and I quote Jonathan here, “I was pretty sure playing 2k light wouldn’t be fun for anyone including myself”.

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vs.

Christoph Fiedler – Adeptus Custodes – Emperor’s Chosen Goodstuff

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Thoughts

Some metagame titans clashing here. The Custodes are getting one last ride with a full-powered Emperor’s Chosen list, but for the Harlequins something new is afoot. In place of the conventional Light Saedath build, the forces of Twilight take the field, and they’ve managed to leave a unit-and-a-bit’s worth of points behind too. That adds quite a bit of challenge for them here, especially as the Custodes are playing on a mission that rewards the Custodes for being able to make a bold push up the middle, and for making good use of Bodyguard from the multiple units of Wardens to help control nearer positions.

While being a bit more vulnerable to shooting (usually hit on 3s rather than 4s) and losing Capricious Reflections does hurt a lot against the bikes, it isn’t all bad news for the Harlequins. The Twilight stratagem, Malicious Frenzy, is actually pretty good in this matchup – with +1A on the charge from the Twilight Characterisation added in, it suddenly means that the squads with the full sets of Harlequin weapons are a genuine counterattack threat into a bike unit, and in a way that bypasses all the fancy defences Custodes can throw up. If you want to go fully all-in, you could push a unit forward and activate Prismatic Blur for a 3+ invulnerable save, swing with Malicious Frenzy and Murderous Spectacle up, tank any swingback on the 3++ then Fight Again at the end of the phase to finish the job (though bear in mind post-FAQ you’d need to pop Frenzy again).

It’s a bunch of CP, but if it removed a whole bike squad it would be fully worth it (especially with Player of Twilight for extra regen), as this game really feels like it turns on how long the bikes manage to stay operational – if they go out then the rest of the list is quite vulnerable to being outmaneuvred, but if the Harlequins take too long to deal with them then a second wave of Custodes infantry and Characters could be running amok on their near objectives – which feels like it’s the plan for the Custodes here. The clowns also probably want to take To The Last on the voidweaver units too, but every turn where the bikes are still up is a turn where some of those risk getting high-rolled out of the game. The Harlequins can probably pull this out, but they’re very much on a knife edge – one turn where they overcommit and whiff probably loses them enough value that it’s tough to pull back. The game came down to the wire in the end, but the forces of Twilight did manage to take a narrow win.

Result

Harlequins Victory – 11-9BP

Jonathan Sleigh-Johnson – Harlequins – 1st Place

The List

See Showdown

The Standout Features/Archetype

Twilight Saedath Goodstuff (I guess?)

Why it’s Interesting in 9th

See showdown, mostly – all the familiar toys, a bit more vulnerable to shooting and proactive charges from the enemy, but with a bit more of a sting in the tail when counter-charging at high-durability foes. A weakness into Armour of Contempt Terminators may keep Twilight as mostly a pipe-dream if they really take off post-Dataslate, but it’s good to be reminded that even the “weakest” of the three Harlequin Saedath’s has some incredible applications, and winning an event having deliberately sandbagged an army is an incredibly powerful flex from Jonathan.

The Rest of the Best

One player finished 5-1, then a mighty seven players managed to pick up a draw over the course of the event (easier in the 20-0 scoring as you needed a 6VP+ margin for a win) and end up on 4.5-1.5.

• 2nd – Olof Svensson – Tau: Tau Sept Goodstuff with lots of Broadsides and Crisis Suits.
• 3rd – Mattias Levin – Harlequins: Dark Saedath with six Voids and a bike unit.
• 4th – Rasmus Valand Fredriksen – Tau: Bork’an with loads of Crisis Suits.
• 5th – Björn Håkansson – Tau: Bork’an with lots of Broadsides and Crisis Suits, plus some Fire Warriors (one unit of each type) in Devilfish.
• 6th – Christoph Fiedler – Adeptus Custodes: See showdown.
• 7th – Dag Samuelsson – Tyranids: Aggro Crusher stampede with two Scythed Hierodules and a Dima.
• 8th – Johan Norrman – Craftworlds: An Ulthwe Avatar build with lots of artillery and trade units backing him up.
• 9th – Patrick Woods – Adeptus Custodes: Emperor’s Chosen Goodstuff.

Wrap Up

After this week’s appetiser from Stonehammer, the Balance Dataslate will be fuly flexing its muscles next week, and we’ll be there with all the analysis as always. Make sure you tune in then, and send comments, questions and suggestions to contact@goonhammer.com as always.